exercising my literacy

Housekeeping diplomatics.

You buy a new shirt. On the inside you see a little plastic bag with an extra button for it. You:

a) put it in the place that you keep all the extra buttons that come with clothing purchases
b) look at it wondering if you should keep it or not, put it on your desk, and six months later stumble upon it again wondering what shirt it came from
c) throw it straight away, since you know you'll lose it and you'll probably never need it

I've been told there are two types of people in the world. Keepers and throwers. I'm definitely going from the former to the latter. Definitely going from option (a) to (b) to (c).

Perhaps because of the state of my abode, I've become really intolerant of clutter. I used to keep things should I need them "someday". Now I revel in the feeling of throwing stuff out and actually seeing my carpet again. There is a sense of triumph after some serious junk-throwing. By no means am I a neat person now (pigs don't fly haha), but I no longer have that adolescent indifference to a messy room.

Today I got that irritation at clutter again, and started cleaning the house. Doesn't really seem like blogworthy news, but just hear me out.

My mother and I have different ideology when it comes to the hoarding/throwing issue. If I am somewhat left wing, then she is more conservative than the gun-wielding folk in Texas. Not only do I have to be careful of my words on this post now, the bigger challenge is to respect her and still live with the clutter in my house. I have tried to reason, I have offered to clean stuff out for her, but she insists that everything we hoard has some purpose, whether now or sometime in the perhaps future should one day the world run out of jam jars, or should I fail medicine so badly that I'll need my year 9 Signpost textbook again.

I love my mum, so up until recently I have just left things the way they were. I throw out my crap, she keeps hers.

But lately it's getting too much. I can't walk anywhere without tripping on something. So one day when no one was home, I started throwing things out like nobody's business. I was so scared that Mum would tell me off, but she never even noticed.

So today, everyone's out again, and I'm on an excavation mission once more. But the whole time I'm still thinking, is this wrong? Should I not be doing this? Is this respectful and loving? Am I still honouring my folks?

I don't know. All I know is that I want to walk around without stubbing my toes anymore.

You know I think Mum became a hoarder because Grandma used to throw everything out...

posted by me. @ 3:00 PM