Welcome to Volume 14 of Clutter Tales, a series where we tell the stories of our lives through our clutter. Today, I have another guest post and it’s one I know many of you will relate to. This post comes from Tom from The Doubting Thomas. He shares his story of a common decluttering dilemma – What to do with several bags of school day memorabilia given to him by his Mum? 

About today’s guest blogger

An interesting thing about blogging is it’s a largely female-dominated realm. You can find Tom over at The Doubting Thomas where he provides a rare and much-needed male perspective. He writes about a wide range of topics, including blogging tips, mental health, and his experience as a husband and dad of two girls. I enjoy his honest and down-to-earth approach to subjects many of us can relate to. Please drop by and visit his blog. I’m sure you’ll love it. 

Tom’s Clutter Tale – A decluttering dilemma

I look back on my school days with a fair degree of fondness. I mean, whilst I don’t have many bad memories of school, I haven’t exactly held onto much from my time there either.

I knew my parents kept a lot of stuff from when I was younger; my Mum isn’t necessarily a hoarder, she just had no real need or desire to throw anything away when it came to school and I guess that’s a lovely thing to consider.

So, when I was asked if I wanted to take home approximately 7 years’ worth of seemingly important school stuff, I thought “yeah why not?”.

Here I was, bags upon bags full of reports, letters, little pieces of work I’d done that had been deemed valuable enough to keep hold of. Plus, the school photos. Oh, the photos. Right from when I was in nursery school as an awkward gangly boy with bad hair to when I was in secondary school as an older gangly boy with similarly bad hair.

The notion of keeping hold of things has sort of become a bit lost on me; not much I had in my life between the ages of 16 and 24 had much meaning or sentiment to it, and then I became a boyfriend and a father and of course it all changed. Together we kept pictures, train tickets from important occasions, birthday cards, drawings, all sorts of stuff that reminded me of something important.

I imagine for my Mum, it would have been a weight off her mind knowing that she’d been able to release at least something from the collection of memorabilia she’s been holding onto for between 15-25 years; just the sports trophies (not many of them) and a few other bits to go I reckon. Truthfully, I have no idea what she’s still got in her house that used to belong to me.

At the same time though, I had a decision to make.

A decluttering dilemma…

Do I really need to keep all this? Is it truly valuable to me? Or will it just become a bit of a clutter-y nuisance and take up too much space?

The truth is, I think it can be a little bit of both.

I don’t really need any of that stuff. I’m not hanging onto anything, as if I’m going to reminisce about the good old days at school and want to make friends again with all the people in the picture. I mean, they all went their ways and I went mine. Some of them live locally to me and I see them every now and then, whereas I’m sure some have travelled the world or hey, some might not even be with us anymore.

But also, as much as I don’t need it, I think it can act as a positive reinforcement method too. For example, I have been really considering whether or not I want to ditch blogging as a hobby, but then I saw a message from my year 6 teacher in one of my reports who said she knew I had a talent for writing and to “keep it up”.

Now, you’re not going to hear about this in my memoirs, but that gave me a little bit of a boost. The fact that a little old lady who carried a stick and I’m 99% sure is no longer with us anymore thought I had potential when I was 11 years old, there’s still a good reason for me to keep writing in some capacity albeit 20 years later.

As for the topic of clutter and space, all those bags of stuff have now been placed down the bottom of a drawer in our bedroom, beneath the old clothes I never get around to sorting. As a busy adult with kids and a full-time job etc. etc., clutter is sort of inevitable. We do try and get around to having a bit of a throwing away session every couple of months, because otherwise it has the potential to reach catastrophic levels.

I may look at this little shrine I’ve created at the bottom of my drawer in a few months’ time and think, no I don’t really have a need for these. So, what do I do?

Do they make the transition from internal to external storage? (Attic, basement etc.)

Do they get thrown away completely?

I certainly can’t take them back to my parents’ house; poor folks have only just gotten rid of them.

Maybe, they’ll just need to stay in my drawer until I can figure out what should happen with the only physical reminders I have of my school days, the stuff I did and the people I went there with.

A *little* bit of clutter never hurt anybody….

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Thanks again to Tom for sharing this story with us. Please drop by and visit Tom at The Doubting Thomas. I know you’ll love it.

I hope you enjoyed this installment of Clutter Tales. If you’d like to write a guest post for Clutter Tales, please get in touch. I’d love to give you the opportunity to properly thank your clutter by sharing its story too!

How do you deal with “clutter” that your families have carefully preserved and passed along to you? Do you hang on to it? Tell us your approach below.