Survey #255—Full Response from Anonymous user
| Is there a room or space in your home that you don’t love or that you tend to avoid using—or even entering? What factors contribute to your distaste for or lack of enjoyment of this space? | It is the room where my husband lay. I smoothed the covers when they took him on a gurney, not knowing he would be dead in days. His wish, which I did not know at that time , was to have no funeral or memorial service, and no gravesite. This was devastated to me. He said the hardest part about dying was leaving me. It felt comforting, in the following days, to pile stuff where he had lain. I remember thinking,"Stuff, at least, will not leave me." Soon, with the ever expanding piles, the door to that room could barely be opened. The rest of the house filled up as well. I realized later that I'd used the piles of stuff to symbolically bury him, and that the comfort in burying him this way also contributed to building what felt like a safe cushion between me and the unfriendly world I now have to face alone. With the decluttering process, I am now, in a sense, carving out a life for myself. To clear out his room, however, I think I will have to have an image of what I would like to use it for, because going through it item by item for no reason other than to clear it out is still just too painful. |
|---|---|
| Do you have regrets about anything that you’ve discarded or given away in your decluttering process? If you answered yes, how do you manage negative feelings about your choice? If you answered no, to what do you credit your satisfaction with the choices you’ve made? | Yes, however, I was forced by others to give away those things. Ever since then, I began holding onto everything, "just in case." It would have been better had I made those mistakes myself, because I may have learned to make decisions about getting rid of stuff. |
Be the first to comment!
Comment on this survey response
Please use the form below to share a comment on this survey response. We ask that you keep your comments courteous and respectful. Polite disagreement is fine, but abusive language won’t be tolerated. Your comment will be held briefly for moderation after submission.
"*" indicates required fields
