An Ode to Sentimental Clutter
An amber-colored glass paperweight sits in my nightstand drawer. It used to belong to my dad, who recently died, and to his grandmother before him. It’s shaped like a cube, with delicate flowers painted on each side, and it’s heavy in my palm. But I rarely pick it up, because I have no papers that need weighing down. The object occupies valuable space that might otherwise be used for a book, tissues, or anything else that I actually use. Still, I keep it, along with a few other pieces of what you might call “sentimental clutter”—personally meaningful yet impractical objects: a box of old birthday cards, a chipped seashell, a loyalty card for a café that no longer exists.
I’m reconsidering these mementos and many others as I try to clear out space in the small apartment I share with my husband and toddler. But I can’t seem to give them away. So they collect in the corners of rooms, evoking the randomness of a thrift store—and not the twee, curated kind. I don’t necessarily love the look of mismatched junk congesting the nooks and crannies of my home, but the clutter satisfies a deeper emotional need. Collectively, it represents every stage of my life, the lives of relatives who have died, and now the life of my not-quite-2-year-old daughter. It connects me to people and times that would otherwise feel lost.
On my dresser sits a metal box of train tickets and museum passes from travels that feel so far away, it’s as if I read about them in a book. Under the bed is a stash of old clothes, including the frilly top I wore on my 21st birthday. I haven’t tried it on in more than a decade, but when I take it out, my fingers still linger on the cheap ruffles; they recall a self who was freer, if more aimless. By now, I’ve schlepped some of this paraphernalia through 12 different apartments. I’m reminded of my former selves even when I’m starting anew.
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Still more lives in my teenage bedroom, which my mom has been asking me to sort through for nearly two decades. Once in a while, I brave the pile and send some T-shirts from old clubs to Goodwill, but the prospect of parting with homework assignments and notes from friends is oddly exhausting. How was I so close to this girl I haven’t seen for 20 years that she wrote me a gushing note and made me a personalized collage? How am I still friends with some of the others? I’m charmed by these memories but also overwhelmed by a sense of bittersweetness.
Other objects are small tributes to the people I’ve lost. In the first half of last year, my father, my husband’s father, and my grandfather all died for unrelated reasons. Their possessions have since trickled into our home. We haven’t yet figured out what to do with all of them. So for now, the dress shoes my husband’s father wore to our wedding take up space in our closet. My husband plans to donate them, but not yet. Sometimes the sight of them catches me off guard, and I wonder whether they are helping us heal or stopping us from moving on.
Cramming our spaces with painful tokens from the past can seem wrong. But according to Natalia Skritskaya, a clinical psychologist and research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Prolonged Grief, holding on to objects that carry mixed feelings is natural. “We’re complex creatures,” she told me. When I reflect on the most memorable periods of my life, they’re not completely devoid of sadness; sorrow and disappointment often linger close by joy and belonging, giving the latter their weight. I want my home to reflect this nuance. Of course, in some cases, clinging to old belongings can keep someone from processing a loss, Skritskaya said. But avoiding all sad associations isn’t the solution either. Not only is clearing our spaces of all signs of grief impossible to sustain, but if every room is scrubbed of all suffering, it will also be scrubbed of its depth.
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Deciding what to keep and what to lose is an ongoing, intuitive process that never feels quite finished or certain. The line between “just enough” and “too much” can fluctuate, even if I’m the one drawing it. A slight shift in my mood can transform a cherished heirloom into an obtrusive nuisance in a second. Never is this feeling stronger than when I’m frantically searching for my keys, or some important piece of mail. Such moments make me feel that my life is disordered, that I lack control over my surroundings (because many of my things were given to me, rather than intentionally chosen). Yet still more stuff finds its way into our limited space as our child receives toys and we acquire more gear. I do part with some of my stash semi-regularly. Even so, I’m sure that more remains than any professional organizer would recommend.
In one sense, a home is a personal museum. Certain objects may connect us to greater historical events. My grandfather’s yellowed luggage tag represents not only the trips he chose to take later in life, but also those he was forced to in earlier years; as a Japanese American teenager during WWII, he was relocated to an internment camp. Others will mean something only to those who knew the objects’ users. I think of the first “painting” my daughter made, which almost made me and my husband cry. It’s just a few blotted dots, but the idea of her choosing where to put them was strangely moving, her first exercise in the vulnerability of creative discretion. It’s still displayed on our fridge. These artifacts honor our home’s inhabitants and memorialize the people who have shaped our lives.
During one of my last visits to see my dad at his house, he gave us an antique wooden high chair from his childhood home. The thought that my dad, who looked taller than usual reclined in bed, had once sat in this tiny chair was baffling. We took it home for my daughter, who had just started eating solid foods. Several days later, my dad was gone. The high chair was still there.
Most of my relations, my father included, did not lead particularly big lives. Their names are not carved into buildings or attached to scholarships. Only a handful of people think of them still, and one of those people is me. But their personal possessions remain and say: Someone was here. As I go about my day, folding laundry, or thinking through what needs to be done, my clutter reminds me of the people who have filled my life and, now, my apartment.