Despite pain from old injuries in my right wrist and right ankle, this clutter warrior managed to battle the closet enough to clear one more shelf. This post, while being just a little shorter than usual, does represent one more victory.
The Constant Thorn in My Side: An Incomplete Shelf
About a year ago, I partially cleaned off the most accessible shelf in the closet (a little below waist level), just enough to store my HeroClix and other gaming supplies.
The problem?
I didn’t clean off the left side of the shelf…
…or the right side of it, for that matter.
Plus, there was a little stuff piled up in front of the shelf (sitting on top of massive stacks of junk, lol), which made it hard to get to the parts of the shelf I actually am using these days.
So, with braces wrapped around both my wrist and my ankle, I studied the closet, and determined that today was a good day to finally clean off those three un-cleaned areas. I figured it would be an easier task that wouldn’t strain my injured joints too badly.
I Crammed HOW MUCH Stuff On That Shelf?!
After a little work to clear the left side of the shelf…
…and a little more work to clear the right side…
…and even getting that middle stack a little lower…
I ended up with all of this spread across the bed. My powers of junk hoarding and compacting are unsurpassed. XD
Most of it is remnants of schoolwork, old projects, a few books, and the like–a childhood time capsule, if you will. I threw out all the obvious trash (such as a box of super-old Halloween candy corn…God only knows what year it was from, ugh), and carried the rest of the items down to the basement, where the Clutter Dragon’s infamous closet hoard is currently stashed.
A few avalanches of junk happened as I shifted the closet’s junk topography (LOL). This is one of the many little crashes I heard and saw as I moved junk and set it on the bed. Ah, the hidden dangers of cleaning! The closet never fails to try to attack me with the only weapons it has–clutter! 
The Shelf Finished at Last!
Finally, after moving all the junk off the bed, wiping down the shelves to get rid of any dust (or worse), and readjusting the remaining items, I had a finished third shelf in the closet. YAHOO! At last! I have yet to use the space I reclaimed, but I’m sure I’ll find something. You know me, there’s always a need for more storage in my room!
Next Week: The Part I Hate The Most
As I carried my burdens down to the basement, I realized something…the basement room is beginning to overflow with all this closet clutter. The LAST thing I need is for the Clutter Dragon to find a new home in my house! >:C
So, next week, you will see the true carnage begin, as I start to sort these remnants of childhood into “toss,” “keep,” and “sell/donate.” This is the part of de-cluttering that I have been avoiding for too long, and it can’t continue. If I don’t remove these items from the house in some way, then all this effort has just moved stuff around, like a kid avoiding eating vegetables by moving them around on the plate.
This is the takeaway lesson for this week, and for the weeks to come: if you want to de-clutter, then you have to actually GET RID of items. Hoarding them won’t make you happy, especially if you move them to another part of the house only to keep tripping over them. Stay tuned as I begin to toss, sell and donate items from the Clutter Dragon’s horrible cache!