Mama Didn't Raise No Hoarders

January 7, 2012 10:25pm

Um...either that statement is completely false or its a double negative, in which case it's true.

See, my mother never throws out anything. I don't know why. And I always promised myself I wouldn't be like that. For a long time I wasn't - I moved every 6 months or so and chucked everything I didn't need. But 22 years ago my then boyfriend/now husband and I bought a house. It's not a big house. (Can I interject that I hate raised ranches. They're small, they have no attic and no closet space.)

At first things were okay. I chucked stuff regularly. And then my son came along. And life got in the way. And things got shoved up into the crawl space that is sort of like an attic if you're willing to crawl on your hands and knees down the center and watch your head.

Then I took over the spare bedroom, which is really no more than a glorified closet since it only measures 9 ft by 10 ft., and turned it into a craft room/attic. It's now more attic than craft room since it's unusable and I do my craft projects at the breakfast bar.

Then we turned half of the cellar into a family room with a second bathroom, and another quarter of it into a home office for my husband. The remaining quarter is the laundry machines, the furnace and some haphazard shelving. All the stuff stored there either made its way into the non-attic (yeah, I think it might be a fire hazard) or the craft room.

And the breakfast bar has become a craft table/catch all. And my craft room has moved into the dining room.

Then there's my son's electronics and manga and anime and stuff....

I've run out of room. There are stacks of things in my house. Seriously. It's freaking me out. I'm throwing shit out but I'm making no headway. I'm drowning in the detritus of my life. It's gotta go!

I think I'm my mother.