6 If it’s really going to hurt to throw it out, then don’t. Wait. Leave it in a high-traffic area of your house for a few days. I had an old bag that I had used when I was a teenager. The handles were broken beyond repair and I knew it had to go. Still, I felt bad about it. So I sat it on the floor of the kitchen and after three days of looking at what was essentially a mess of ripped-up nylon, I realised it was a ridiculous thing to put back in a cupboard. I carried it out to the bin, hugged it goodbye, then threw it out. It was a little bit sad, but then again, so is watching Beaches.
7 Pack away like with like. I’ve packed all my primary-school stuff in one box, high-school in another, university in another. All my tools are in one place, linen is in one cupboard, photo albums are on one bookshelf and so on. Also, all my balls of hair and fingernail-parings are stashed in a little purse and kept under my pillow. (I’m kidding, clearly.) Pack your things away in whatever theme you like, just ensure it makes sense to you. This will also make it easier if you start adding to those boxes in the future, as you’ll be able to see if you’re doubling up. Remember, you only need one thing from each time or place to be your time machine.
8 If, despite your best intentions, you come across something that really hurts, or conjures up a big painful memory that slams you in the side of the head, stop. Just stop. Breathe. Cry if you need to. Write about it. Call a friend. Watch a Will Ferrell movie. Then eat a lot of ice-cream and congratulate yourself on how far you’ve come. Don’t revisit it again until those emotional abs of steel of yours are rock hard.
9 Don’t throw out things in anger; you can’t punish someone else by punishing yourself. Giving away a perfectly good bedside table won’t make your ex wake in the night in a vale of tears, it’ll just leave you with nowhere to put your alarm clock. Revisit it when you’ve calmed down. You’ll probably let go of it in the end anyway, but at least you will have done it rationally.
10 That said, if you break up with someone, get rid of the bed linen immediately. I wish I had. I slept under the doona I had shared with Thomas for ages after we broke up. That’s just creepy. And a bit gross.
11 You’re going to find you have more money. I don’t lose things now; I don’t have to buy a new pair of scissors every time I need to cut something. My bills get paid on time because I know where I keep them. I don’t have to leave the house to have dinner anymore, I actually enjoy being in my own home. I’m in control now, not the stuff.
12 If you can’t get going on your own, get some friends to come around. People won’t hate you for having a messy house, they’ll love you. This is because they’ll either see themselves in you and feel less alone in their plight, or they’ll feel better about themselves because they’re not in nearly the same dire pile of crap that you are. Either way, you’re getting the help you need, and doing a community service at the same time.
13 Don’t get discouraged. You’re going to get a long way into this before anything looks any different. Just keep going. All of a sudden, after weeks and weeks of feeling like you’ve made no difference, you’ll throw out one more thing and realise you can rearrange all your cupboards and move a whole mass of useful stuff into a new, cleared-out area. This will make you feel like a god. Build yourself a shrine, put on a toga, shave your head and make your family worship you.
14 Get a personal organiser when you’re at your lowest, not when you’re at your most motivated. They are there to help you when you get stuck.
15 Tell people you’re clearing out your stuff. That way, the fear of being publicly shamed if you fail will keep you motivated.
16 Reward yourself. Throwing out all your old clothes will make you realise what a truly shabby wardrobe you actually have. Buy yourself something decent. Just one thing.
17 I said, just one thing.
18 With the above in mind, every time you buy a new something, throw out an old equivalent. Every time I buy a new article of clothing, I ditch something else. And if I have nothing that needs throwing out, I probably don’t need anything new. Exceptions to this rule include special occasion clothes (weddings, fancy-dress parties, mountaineering), things that you actually need more than one of (such as underpants, socks, jumpers) or things that are missing (for example, you don’t own any trousers; it happens). When you’ve got your wardrobe under control, you’ll know exactly what you need and what you don’t.
19 Make sure you put on a party CD. Don’t play something miserable or something sentimental; you’ll start looking at that old milk jug and reminiscing about all the good times you had together and then, the next thing you know, you’ll be sitting on the floor sobbing over your possessions like they’re real people and refusing to let them go. It’s useful to keep reminding yourself that you are de-hoarding, not re-enacting a scene from Sophie’s Choice. Treat the whole thing like a celebration; disco is good, anything from the eighties is better.
20 You don’t have to throw out everything you’ve ever owned. I didn’t and I have no intention of doing so. People who throw out everything and live without any reminders of their past are just as lost as the people who have thrown out nothing. We all have a story and we owe it to ourselves to honour that. I still have stuff that is useless to other people but means a lot to me. Most people do. Just throw out the duplicates, the stuff that is irrelevant and the stuff that makes you feel miserable or guilty or angry. Throw out the stuff that doesn’t sing to you.
21 Don’t let others bully you into tidying up their way. There are no rules. You can get rid of stuff in big chunks, do it one thing at a time, give it to charity, give it to friends, leave it on the footpath with a sign that says ‘free to good home’, do a naked dance in the middle of the street while throwing your stuff over your neighbour’s fence or do a combination of all the above. It doesn’t matter as long as the stuff goes and you feel like you’ve done it the right way. If it was as simple as just chucking everything out in one fell swoop, we all would have done it years ago. It’s more complicated and more personal than that. Tell that to the next smartarse who makes a joke about your stuff. Either that, or collapse in front of them, wailing in grief and self-flagellating. They’ll be so embarrassed they’ll never bring it up again.
22 It’s useful to find something that will remind you of where your hoarding started and display it as a reminder. For me, it’s that ball of finger-knitting I made when I was eight years old. I found it not long ago when I was at my parents’ house. I’d been going through a box in their spare room and when I pulled it out, I couldn’t believe how small it was. I stared at it disbelievingly and thought to myself, ‘This is where it all started?’ Obviously I’d allowed things to snowball. So now it sits in my study to remind me that everything is small to begin with. It’s up to us to control how big we let it grow.
Good luck.
Acknowledgements
A big thankyou to everyone who helped me write this book, for all of your encouragement, cups of tea and especially for telling me your own hoarding stories, some which made me feel much better about myself. Thank you to Matthew Albert, Dana Bajjali from the UNHCR in Jordan, Ariane Rummery from the UNHCR in Australia, and all the refugees who shared their stories with me. Thank you to Maria Hofstra, Jordan and Fabian, Lucy Petry and her family. Thank you to Craig Ross, Lara Stockdale, Fahey Younger, Gerard McCullough, Don, Elizabeth and Wendy Grant, Nigel Cooper, Lissanne Oliver, Kellie Maltagliati, Paul Robinson, Annette Barlow, Angela Handley, Ali Lavau and the delightful Catherine Milne. And thank you to Adam Richard, who read over every word in this book and helped me back out of the forest on more than one occasion. In return, he wants everyone to know that, in this book, he is thinner than in real life.
About the Author
Corinne is an accomplished stand-up, MC, presenter, writer and broadcaster, and has performed both nationally and internationally. Best known for her work on Rove Live and The Glasshouse, she has also been seen in successful live shows everywhere from the Sydney Opera House to the Kalgoorlie Arts Centre.
Her natural, down-to-earth charm and her quick wit have made her one of Australia’s best-known, and most loved, performers.
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