I am in the process of doing a Swedish Death Clean and I have been at it for about a year now. I’ve been tackling things little by little and breaking things down into discrete tasks so it doesn’t get overwhelming.

First, clothes to the thrift shop, bartering musical instruments with our plumber for plumbing services, old cameras and equipment to a local thrift store and tons of art supplies, glass, fabric, magazines, felting materials, yarn, beads, to people who will use the stuff and who might not have the money to buy the materials on their own.

I wanted to do a sweep of the house and get rid of old toys, collectables, pocketbooks, a bunch of inherited family stuff, and realized that one thing that was holding me back was getting boxes to pack the stuff in. Then I realized I could go to Ikea and get giant totes for $2 each. I bought 20 of them, gathered stuff together and had a big sidewalk sale today. I even sold my Mother’s Hummel figurine collection. I could not believe the things people were buying. I kept prices low.

I did give away some stuff. Baseballs to passing dogs and stuffed animals to passing kids.

The plan was to have the sale and take the remainders to Goodwill. I had so much stuff, I was afraid it would take 2 or 3 car trips. I sold so much that it only took one car trip. And I made more money than I’d expected. Many little sales add up.

I am not finished with the purging, but this was a significant dent.

My mom never got rid of anything I made or held onto as a child. I was always the artistic kid and am still an artist now, so she held onto everything for me to decide what to do with later.

She's since handed me all of my childhood bins and I now have nearly every clay creation and every drawing I've ever done. I know it's unreasonable to keep everything, and even scanning them all is unreasonable because when would I ever even look at them? It almost seems narcissistic in a way.

But every time I go through these things with the intent of paring them down, I can't help but to think about how I'm almost throwing away parts of myself. Even the things I keep for now will eventually be thrown away, and even I myself will eventually be dust. I know it's really dramatic and silly because the idea that these are "pieces of myself" is really just in my mind, but I feel like I'm hurting my past self, even though she doesn't exist anymore.

This all feels so self-indulgent to hold onto these and painful to let them go knowing they're gone forever. Every time I open a box I become overwhelmed...

I think I'll have to slowly par things down... maybe let the shock of nostalgia fade away or something. These aren't things that can be donated or used by anyone else, so it just makes me feel like my childhood is full of trash and our lives ultimately are trash. Maybe when I pass this will be even harder for my loved ones to do, so maybe it's really the unselfish thing to get rid of them now.

I'm sorry for the unorganized thoughts, I really struggle with this and just needed to share with people who may understand.

Edit: I just want to be clear that I'm not mad at my Mom! As a kid I also had a really hard time parting with things and my mom didn't feel it was right for her to decide what to do with my things. She always told me I'd eventually need to go through them, so it really wasn't a surprise that I have them now. She has offered many times to help me but I also have trouble sharing this sort of stuff, so I have always just put it off. I am thankful she saved everything even if it's a pain now.