Something I'm Good At - Blog Carnival

This week’s Blog Carnival post theme is “Something I’m Good At”.

I am really good at keeping things. Like too good. Like if you said, “Lizzy could you please look after this scrap of paper for me?” I would put it away safely in one of my shoeboxes and in 6 years could bring it out and say, “did you still want this?” I don’t know why but I just keep stuff. It just happens. 

Recently a dear friend of mine sent me a letter addressed to herself. It was a work of comedic gold about how her future self should and should not behave should she have a wedding. My friend sent this to me for comedy reasons, but also because she knew I could keep it and pull it out at the right moment YEARS in the future if she broke any of the rules laid out in this letter.

I am hesitant to call myself a hoarder. I don’t want to claim a label that applies to people who can’t leave their own homes due to stuff. I don’t want to be like those people who say they have OCD when what they mean is they are neat. I do not have a house filled with 10 year old newspapers and ice-cream containers. Which is probably for the best. But I am pretty good at keeping stuff.

Plus, I have a lot of the symptoms of hoarding.

I keep stuff automatically, without thinking about it.
I become very agitated if I think about getting rid of things.
I will often ignore or refuse to look at a pile of things I logically know need to go.
I get really sad when I do throw things away.

In fact, I develop such an emotional attachment to the things I “hoard” that I have been known to cry when someone mentions getting rid of them. 

I don’t keep everything, but I keep “important” things - like photos, letters, tickets, notebooks, etc. And I keep clothes. I’m not even particularly fashion conscious. I don’t even love clothes all that much. But I find it incredibly difficult to throw them away. So I have a large pile of clothes that 1. don’t fit me, 2. have holes in them or 3. I no longer like to wear. 

So that’s my “Something I’m Good At” and this is all a really round about way of saying I managed to overcome my emotional attachment to a bunch of clothes last night. I pulled every item of clothing I own and shoved it on the bed. I put a bunch of stuff I’m not particularly attached to in a bag for charity, that’s fine, I can cope with that. But then I still had a pile of things I don’t wear but I can’t let go of… because it made me sad to think about. These items I threw in a massive bucket.

I told you I had a problem

Then I started making this:

It grew:

And grew:

And grew some more: 

It is now larger than my lap...

And now I have a fancy rug, clean shelves and no regrets. PLUS I can keep this rug and see the skirt I bought in year 12, the spotty dress I wore almost every day for a whole summer, all the black shirts from shows I’ve worked on and whatever else I add to it in the coming months. It was a spectacular cure for feeling sad about letting go. 

I suppose I’m good at making circular crotchet rugs from old clothes now too. So that’s nice.

Want to make a rug? The Art Assignment will tell you all about it here, further instructions here. 

What else is happening this week at the blog carnival?

Stay tuned for links...