Put a Sock In It!

So I am guessing that I grabbed your attention with a this headline coupled with a picture of my mother in law. Before you begin to worry that I am implying any bad will with Grannie Annie I will put your mind at ease. I am simply making a feeble attempt at increasing readership. After all, aren't sensationalized headlines a commonplace method among journalists today?

Check out the title from yesterday's news that turned my head - Las Vegas woman missing for four months found dead under pile of junk in her house The ensuing story was really quite sad. A woman who had been missing for 4 months was finally found buried under her own ceiling high junk. As a former junk collector, I couldn't help but identify with the slippery slope one must find themselves on to become an actual hoarder who then dies under her own stuff. Does it all start with some haphazard acquiring of things at garage sales and bargain basements and then turn into a full fledge accumulation addiction?

After some brief research I have found that hoarding is considered a type of o.c.d. behavior. A quick scan of the t.v. listings will tell you that this illness is now being either explored or exploited with shows titled "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive". Our fascination with the hoarding behavior is also growing. What is the lure of these tragic depictions of individuals with problems? As stated in this article, perhaps the shows "are like fun-house mirrors, magnified reflections of our neurotic foibles that make us feel better about our own dysfunctional behaviors". Or maybe, as the author states, "Aside from helping us feel quasi-normal, TV shows like "Hoarders" and "Hoarding: Buried Alive" serve as cautionary tales. If we continue to pile our stuff on our dresser or desk, those small piles could grow into bigger ones and start multiplying like rabbits, eventually mushrooming into Mount Everest sized piles that cover every available surface of our house. Before long we'll be no better off than those hoarders on TV who live in sub-human habitats that we dare ourselves to peek at with a mixture of dread and fascination."

My guess is that people with stuff fall on some sort of continuum with minimalists (which is its' own kind of compulsion) on one end and hoarders on the other polar opposite end. Me, well I find myself somewhere in the middle and edging closer to minimalism. Today, I have completed my 29th downsize. After yesterday's ultimate purge I went for a smaller offering. I finally returned a black pair of socks to my mother in law. They were uncovered when I began sorting through the guest room closet (in this entry). Neither Annie nor I can recall when she left them here. Either way, they could have remained pinned under ceiling high junk forever had I not found the will and purpose to clean the closet. To add to my downsize for today, I gave Annie some photos from our trip to Alabama in 2006. Apparently I had duplicate copies made and never delivered them to her. The greatest part of the exchange was reminiscing about the trip and marveling at how Shayla and Kiera have changed in a few short years. And no, I didn't tell her to put a sock in it. We spend far too much time apart and have only these brief days each year to catch up on life.