Dear Niece,
Can you believe he is 3 months old?? I can, but I remember when Nicholas turned 3 months and it quite literally felt like we had just left the hospital a week or so ago.
By now little Ginger Baby has learned to do a lot of things and has grown quite a bit. This growing leads to a little, tiny, problem: outgrown clothes.
And I know you’re wondering how this is a problem, these clothes aren’t hurting anyone. But if you look at the amount of stuff that, three months into his life, he can never wear again you can imagine how big that pile will be in nine more months. You simply cannot keep everything. And I know you probably aren’t planning to because you’re a sensible person and understand letting go of stuff in order to fit more stuff in. Especially stuff you’ll never use again. And I’m not being sarcastic, you’re quite sensible.
Awesome!
But I’m sure there are some pieces of clothing you want to keep. And soon there will be things like shoes and first pacifier or favourite toy. And you may be torn between your logic which tells you to let go of things you don’t need because they take up space and the emotional side that tells you to KEEP ALL THE THINGS because it’s all cute and has a memory attached you never want to forget. How do you decide what to keep?
Don’t. Just keep it.
I say this because I know there will be plenty of things you will not hesitate to put in the "donate" pile. And maybe the first purge you’ll only keep one or two things so it won’t really seem like it was a big deal. But if anything at any time makes you hesitate putting it in the "donate" pile, just keep it. There is nothing worse than the regret of having gotten rid of something because you had chosen some arbitrary number to limit the amount of stuff you could keep and that one item put you over the limit. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is telling you, if you want to keep it, if you don’t feel inclined to get rid it of it for whatever reason, keep it.
"But it makes no sense to keep so much stuff! If I don’t set a limit I will end up with too much stuff too soon and will have no place to store it!!" you say.
Wrong!
Two things are going to happen that will prevent this:
1. The amount of stuff you will want to keep will lessen. Honestly. While clothing is mostly just cute body covers for Ginger Baby, he won’t ruin as many things and more things will be cute. During this stage there tends to be a lot of gifts that may seem special and worth keeping, a lot of firsts you want to cherish forever. But once he is mobile and eating solids, not only will he ruin more clothes but he will also ruin more things. You will find yourself being the primary shopper of his wardrobe and therefore less meaning is attached to clothing. You will likely only want to keep a special outfit here and there, a shirt he looked especially cute in. So don’t worry, you won’t always be wanting to keep something, much less 10 somethings, every time you purge.
2. The attachments will fade. I know it may not seem like it but over time the attachment you have to some pieces will lessen. This is especially true if you decided to keep "a lot" of stuff. One day you will go to put something in the special box and start looking through it. You will find a cute onsie that you remember him wearing but can’t remember why you kept it. You will find a romper that you kept because you couldn’t get over how cute he looked in it but see that the stain you were sure you got rid off is back (formula and poop stains are resurrected over time, I don’t know how or why) and while you still think he looked incredibly cute in it there is another outfit he looked even cuter in. So while you did not want to get rid of these items when you put them in, you will now be ok letting it go.
True Story:
As you probably sort of remember, Nicholas’ first year was a crazy and confusing one for me. There was so much going on and I just couldn’t think straight. I was accumulating so much STUFF that he did not use anymore and had no idea what to do. One day, when Nicholas was a year old, I decided to get rid of stuff, I could clearly see that I did not need nor want a lot of the stuff. So I went through and got rid of about 90% of the stuff. The other 10% was a mix of stuff I chose to keep and stuff I could not find so had to keep. It felt great to let go of that stuff and I did it again about two years later. Purging is great!
Several years later, after finding the stuff I had not been able to find for the first purge, I went through everything I still had. I found the stuff I had purposefully kept because they were special to me. I immediately noticed there was a very special outfit missing. I looked through everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Nothing. It was gone. I don’t remember it happening but I know what happened: I gave myself an arbitrary number of items I was allowed to keep and with the pressure of "this gets done today!" that outfit got put in the other pile. I know this because I have exactly 5 special outfits. A very "reasonable" number. I kept very, very few outfits after he turned 1. Having kept that one extra outfit would not have made the slightest impact to the space this stuff takes up. And I am very upset that outfit is gone. And it may sound silly but sometimes I cry over it. I really wanted to keep it. I should have.
You should too.
No comments:
Post a Comment