Letting Go of Jewelry

I thought my next post would be about letting go of clothes, but am finding that task more challenging, so I am starting with jewelry.

I'm not a big jewelry lover so I'll admit that I may be starting with a small volume of jewelry compared to you. I wear jewelry when I go out socially; not every day. A couple of years ago, I decluttered my '80's and '90's costume jewelry I had loved but had then stored in a box for years. What was the point of them being in storage? As I mentioned in a previous post, I am trying to let go of my nostalgic self. Keeping a box of unused items is not giving positive energy to my present.

I have accumulated jewelry every year for decades as I would receive gifts or buy myself something that would catch my eye. I don't remember ever decluttering a good piece of jewelry. Jewelry is quite personal, so it wasn't something that ever made it into my decluttering efforts. The other reason is that a piece of jewelry is small. Compared to a household item, decluttering a piece of jewelry won't really be noticed.

That is until, the collection continues to grow. As my collection increased and overflowed, I bought new boxes to store them. This happened a little bit at a time over a long period of time, so it's not noticeable, until the top of my dresser became full of jewelry boxes and containers. What started as one large drawered jewelry box from my younger days (high school? university?) turned into multiple jewelry boxes, which overflowed into heart shaped empty chocolate boxes and pouches.

You could say that my jewelry is disorganized - and it has become that way over time. Lately, I would want to wear a specific necklace and not know where it was. I also forgot about certain items I had. The pandemic didn't help, but I have not been wearing much jewelry in the last few years.

The problem related to many parts of my life is that once I own something, especially if it is a gift given to me, I feel the need to keep it forever. In psychology, they refer to this as the endowment effect which finds that people are more likely to keep something they own than buy that same thing when they don't own it.

I am in the process of changing that mindset. Someone doesn't give me a present expecting me to keep it forever, so why do I feel like that?

I am ready to let go of jewelry even pieces that I like or love. I am letting go of jewelry that have memories attached to them. How and why am I doing that?

When the collection gets too big, we can't truly appreciate the best ones, especially when they are buried by the excess. I could get myself a bigger and better organizer but I don't need to keep jewelry that I only wear a few times a year. I often gravitate to my favourites so why not just keep those? 

The more I have, the more there is to maintain and organize. I love the boxes I have and am not interested in an elaborate or space taking unit. I let go of the box I didn't love and was taking the most space. I am keeping the 3 jewelry boxes I love.

I realized after I took the first photo that the heart shaped chocolate box was a memory box that has a childhood shell necklace I loved, my childhood charm bracelet and shells I loved from a childhood trip. They are some of my favourite childhood mementos not actual jewelry.

I started the letting go process with empty jewelry boxes - laying everything out on the table. Recognizing the containers I want to keep, I started by putting my favourites in that space. I like having the smaller boxes inside to better separate the items. I grouped similar things together. 

I kept going until the space was full and I am donating the rest.

Giving it more thought since taking the second photo, the boxes are still overfilled but I need more time to let go of more. I am accustomed to filling a space, fill the closet, fill the drawer, fill the shelf - but that's not the best organization practice. We should leave space to easily find things. We want to make it easy to return things to their place. So I will move some items to an extra box just as a transitionary box to see if I will miss them. I'll review it in a couple of months.

This is a tactic I have been using to help me to let go. I store things to see if they are really missed. Decluttering is a process so I am giving myself a pat on the back for getting it down to this amount.

I feel like I know where each item goes now so it will be easy to put back. It will also be easier to choose what to wear since I can better see what my options.

When I was choosing the jewelry to let go of, I asked myself if I had another item I loved just as much that I could wear if I didn't have it. I let go of things I loved that I found a little finicky to put on, so I often chose not to wear them. I also let go of some I loved with certain outfits that I no longer have. Although I still loved them, they didn't really go with my current wardrobe.

I am hoping that the items I am donating are finding their way to someone who will better appreciate them.

Letting Go of Books

I started this blog post last October but didn't finish it. As I am decluttering more books this weekend, I thought I'd see if I could finish it and maybe add some insight that I didn't have at that time.

As I go through my bookcases, which were overflowing into boxes, the criteria I'm using is whether I:

Let Go

• a book that is easily accessible in the future - so a classic that won't disappear
• a book I loved but will not want to re-read. Whether it's too sad or an interest that isn't one anymore
• useful info that I keep reading and re-reading about - decluttering, productivity, procrastination...how many of these do I need and will I re-read them? 
• informative books that I made summary notes from
• books I wished I wanted to read
• books I wished my kids wanted to read

Keep

• a book about a passion, like travel - I will continue to want to travel, so I love keeping my travel books; especially if I wrote notes in them
• useful info I will want in the future - like my favourite parenting books I'll want to refer to when I'm a grandmother
• rare books like my hometown books that can't be repurchased
• books that may inspire a new idea some day...

 "A Clearing Realization: 

There were books that I didn’t need few years ago but had an intuition to keep.  

for example today .. I had the urge to take few books from my library, and put them together, magically out of nowhere, they spurred a spark of inspiration for a new project for my next book. Suddenly I realized why I kept them. 

The same goes to some pieces of clothes, that may not fit together with my wardrobe at a previous stage. But now after many clearing processes for my wardrobe, it fit perfectly well. 

Listen to your intuition and inspiration when you are clearing. Feel the spark and the inspiration that few items give you, still don’t have logical reason why. Trust your inspiration."

*******

That's what I wrote in October. The last quote is probably from the book Simple Abundance. It sounds like that author. I'm disappointed that I didn't reference it in my draft. I will add the reference when I find it.

As I continued to declutter my books in the past few days, I find it interesting to not have listened to my previous advice.

For example, I got rid of travel books!!! 😲 

I am wanting to create more and more space in my house and I realized that I don't need to keep so many books. I took a photo of the notes insde my travel books - and luckily I wrote notes at the back of the book and not throughout so the notes are saved and the book can be enjoyed by someone else.

Last fall I kept this book. 

It's not easy to find. It's no longer available at Indigo. The author came to our Moms' group and she signed my copy. I scanned the cover and her signature. I would love for someone else to read this book and enjoy it like I did, rather than it sit on my shelf because I met her and she signed it. The photo will remind me in case I want to re-read it in a decade or two. It is available at the library and maybe will return to the book store.

Another book I was keeping was because it was a gift from my husband. I love the film and loved the book. Why not share the love. Why keep an amazing book on my shelf unread for years (obviously I had read it, but then it was sitting there being unread).

Although I scanned the note, I cut out the page and filed it in my chronological Memories folder. Maybe that's a better place for the note than inside the book.

I had been keeping books for decades having read them. Do we keep them to show how "smart" we are and to show that we read all these books. I have lived in this house for almost 25 years. It's not getting any bigger. I also feel that sharing a book shares the knowledge, passion and love. That has been a big mindshift for me. As the years pass and my love of reading continues, I shouldn't keep all the books I read - even if I love them and even if they have memories. 

The memories are not in the physical books. The memories are in my mind and in my heart.

Best Present Self

Bittersweet memories

That is all I'm taking with me

So goodbye, please don't cry

(I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston)

To try to be my best today, I need to let go of my nostalgic self and my someday self.

I thought I was nostalgic when I started my Revive55 Project. When I researched and learned about nostalgia, it was defined as bittersweet memories and homesickness. It's a yearning to return to a happier time. That doesn't make me feel good and maybe isn't what is best for me. 

I'll make a distinction though between nostalgic (bittersweet) memories and happy past memories. Looking at the photos and mementos that I have kept over the decades, I am trying to reflect on what type of memory it is. Does it make me happy in the present? Is it meaningful? Or does it remind me of a happier time that I can't return to? Or worse does it remind me of a time that wasn't happy?

Although I haven't been able to travel the past couple of years, my travel memories still bring up happy feelings when I look at them. Perhaps that is because I know that I still have more travel memories to make. My travel days are not over, they're just on pause.

When I look at my old concert t-shirts, I could say the same thing. I still have concert memories to come, so my past concerts are mostly good memories but perhaps the small fitted t-shirts are not making me feel good because I may never be able to wear them again. (well, I can WEAR them, but I may not want to be SEEN in them...lol) 

I love the design for some of them, like this Coldplay one, so I will keep those and let go of the other ones. I am thinking of framing the ones I love. That feeling of hoping to go back to my smaller self is nostalgic for me. It's a feeling that I want to let go of. I want to feel happy with where I am today. (It's easier said than done, but it's what I am striving for).

I wrote previously about my sports and music trophies. I had two boxes of them in storage. I donated most and kept what I thought at the time were my special ones. Two years later, I can see that some of them are nostalgic. I am ready to let go of more.

When I say I want to let go of my nostalgic self, I am referring to activities, hobbies and experiences. I am not referring to losing someone I love. I fortunately and thankfully can't imagine what it feels like to lose a spouse, a child or a parent. I can't speak for how to deal with immense losses and how to move forward while keeping someone's memory in our hearts.

I am talking about letting go of my own memories that don't add value or happiness to the present.

Letting go of my someday self is about collecting things and ideas about things I keep putting off or keep thinking that I will do some day. For example, I had a sewing machine and basket that I kept for decades barely using them. In high school, I sewed badminton outfits for myself. I couldn't find what I wanted in the stores so created my own with my Mom's sewing machine (even if I never took a sewing lesson). For some reason, I bought myself a sewing machine thinking that some day I would sew. I sewed a Hallowe'en costume for my son once.

He wanted a golf course costume; not to dress up like a golfer. He designed the course including sand traps and water hazards. I sewed the green felt base together. This was one of the few times I used my machine.

When I needed something mended, I would take it to a seamstress. It was not worth me re-learning how to use the machine to fix something. So I kept a few spools of thread and needles and purged the rest, creating space on my shelves for something that would be useful or loved. I am not someone interested in sewing today, so I let it go.

There's a difference between my someday self and my dreamer self. I love setting goals and chasing dreams. I love making vision boards and having lists of things I want to accomplish or places I want to go. I may not be accomplishing those things today, but I am in the process of making them happen or having them manifested.

It's recognizing the difference between something I really want to do rather than something I think I should do.

For me, I really want to make photo albums and video highlights from our past memories. It's not something I think I should do. However, as a Creative Memories consultant, I collected much more scrapbooking supplies than I want to use. I feel like I should use them because I purchased them (or earned them in bonuses) but I don't really want to spend the time decorating my pages as much as I used to. Looking at my scrapbooking supplies, there is a lot that reflects my someday self. I need to let go of those and focus on the ones that will be used. I need to get rid of the clutter to better focus on the albums I want to make.

I know a lot of people who say that they want to make photo albums some day. Do they really want to or do they feel they should? If you are someone who feel they should, I suggest to let go of that someday project. There are other ways to enjoy your memories without feeling the need to organize your whole photo collection into albums.

Moving forward, I may no longer make chronological albums. I feel like my digital photo collection is a continuous library so I'll be focusing on theme albums. More on that in another post.

By letting go of my nostalgic self and my someday self, I am creating space for my best present self.

Present Memories

When I think about memories making me happy, I am thinking about the present. How am I feeling today? Does that memory add something to the present or is it stuck in the past?

When I was choosing my word for 2022, present memories was one of the reasons why I chose the word present.

Just looking at our photos or remembering moments can bring happiness to today. I love that! Looking back at happy memories makes me happy in the present.

I went a step further when we revisited our old apartment and wedding reception hall on our anniversary a couple of years ago. Upon reflection, I am recognizing that the new memories felt different for our apartment and wedding reception hall.

First, we went inside our old condo building that I absolutely love. It's one of my favourite buildings in Toronto. I love flat iron buildings and having actually lived in one when we first moved to Toronto was amazing. 

When we got engaged, we went up to the roof to take photos so we wanted to recreate that moment on this anniversary. The photo of me has the revolving restaurant at the top of the Westin Harbour Castle in the background - where my husband proposed.

We also wanted to see the changed skyscape with all the new buildings. In 2010, while walking from Lake Ontario to our house in midtown, I stopped and went up to the roof to reminisce and see the view. You can read that blog post here. 

We thought it would be fun to see the views from the 1990's, 2010 and 2019. I LOVE the CN Tower and always marvel when I see it, so seeing it from our old building once again was extra special. The photo below of me is from 2010. The 2019 photo on the right is my husband taking a photo with the new L Tower. 

Next, we walked in to the Novotel next door where we had our wedding reception.  The front desk area had changed, but we remembered the old front desk where we stood for what seemed like an hour while they tried to find our reservation. With an early morning flight for our honeymoon, we had gone home to change into our "going away outfits" and brought our luggage to be sent to our room before we returned to our recption.  Not the happiest moment to be reminded of.

From the lobby we climbed the curved staircase to the reception hall which was locked. We looked out the hallway glass door to see the patio where some people may have gone out to cool down but I don't remember going out there for long. I tried to conjure up warm or happy feelings. Of course, I'm happy that we got married and had a great reception there, but seeing it on this day didn't add any value to those memories.

The reception hall didn't have a great view like the condo rooftop did. It also reminded us of a bad experience. Sometimes, bad experiences happen for a reason and it turns out for the better or becomes a funny story, but this one didn't really have that. I love the memories and photos I have of our wedding dinner and reception, but maybe the location itself isn't that important. 

During my Revive55 Project, I was trying to "revive" memories, but sometimes, some memories are just that. Moments in time to treasure. Keep what you love and let go of what you don't.

Why Create Space?

I originally posted this as "Why Make Space", but since, I have changed the wording to Create Space to include the creativity that I want to practice more. I am changing "make space" for "create space" in this edited version.

In my attempt to "create space" as I'm calling part 2 of my Revive55 Project, I am having trouble answering why I am saving certain things. I was looking at things that I was not getting rid of, and was wondering why not? 

In the past few weeks, I have recycled, donated and thrown away more sentimental items than I have in years. I feel like I'm in the process of having a mindset shift. Things that I was holding on to even just two years ago when I started my Revive55 Project, I'm able to let go of now.

For example, I kept magazines and newspapers. I had a box full of them. Two years ago, I got rid of more than half of them...and now, I decreased it even more. Looking at them, I wonder why I saved them in the first place. Some of them are not happy memories; but perhaps that is also a mindset shift that happened to me in the last decade or so. Letting go of sad memories. I don't mean to forget them, but why have something to remind me.

I think rather than asking why I am saving something, a better question may be why do I want to create space? Focusing on my future vision and even focusing on how I feel today may be more impactful.

I have been living in this house for over twenty years. I have accumulated a lot of stuff and memories in that time. Every year I decluttered things that were no longer useful or loved, but sentimental stuff continued to accumulate. What started as one memory box, became two, then four, eight,  sixteen... Okay, I don't think I ever only had one memory box. I left for university with more than one, but you get my point. What started out as a few photo albums became dozens. My digital photo and video collections keep growing. Hard drives and cloud storage keep increasing. How will we find our photo and video memories in 10 or 20 years if we don't curate them?

I have had many birthdays and holidays. I have collected countless gifts and cards. I find gifts harder to part with than things I have bought for myself. Gifts have more sentimental value but should they? If I buy something, it's something I love enough to spend on. I wouldn't necessarily have bought the gifts chosen by others. It's not the thing but the gesture from the gift-giver we value.

As my children have left home, looking at how much they have accumulated makes me realize that perhaps I have encouraged them to hold on to things. There were many times that I kept some things that they were decluttering. There were times when I questioned their lack of attachment to things and "explained" why they were special or reminded them of who gave it to them or where we were when we got them. I don't want them to continue to collect for another 20 years like I did. I also hope to inspire them to let go and make/create space in their lives as a process not a huge mid-life project.

I have read many decluttering books, listened to podcasts and even taken a course. The message is normally to tackle sentimental things last and often times, they don't cover that part.

Sentimental things are personal. We'll hold on to things and let go for different reasons. Hopefully by reading about my "Create Space" journey, you'll reflect on yours and be inspired to make/create space yourself.

Why create space?

I want to create space so that I can enjoy my most meaningful memories. Like I said in a post last year, "they are more beautiful if they are few". Separating our most precious photos, video moments and mementos from the clutter makes us appreciate them more. It also makes us recognize what we value most so we can create more.

I want to create space in order to love what I keep and to keep what adds value to my life. 

I want to create space in order to make new memories. Like I mentioned in my last post, by creating a void, there is room for something new to come into our lives. For example, this is one of my old Facebook posts:

I think my first reaction was that it was a bummer that I got rid of the bag or a Murphy's Law thing. [Of course I get invited after getting rid of my bag]. Letting go of Murphy's Law is another mindset shift I've gone through. I thought of the Law of Attraction because I had been researching snowboard events. I hadn't seen this friend in over a year. When I told her about my Olympic-themed blog and work with SportCafé, she invited me because the Dew Tour would be on and it was one of the first 2014 Olympics qualifying events.  

I didn't think of the "create space" aspect of it at that time though. By letting go of old skiing memories, I made new memories. How many times has this happened and I didn't make the connection?

I decluttered my china cabinet. I was always having to move things to get to what I wanted. I put a lot of it in boxes in a closet, but also donated some. Whenever we have champagne, we have pairs of glasses. With our kids being older, we now often aren't just a couple having champagne so we mix and match glasses.

Although I didn't declutter champagne glasses (yet), two of these are our originals (from a Perrier Jouet gift set) and the other two were being given away by someone in my neighbourhood recently. There was room in my china cabinet for "new" champagne glasses and we now have a similar set of 4.

I may not declutter my champagne glasses. We use them a lot more than our tumblers or high ball glasses (and some of them have sentimal value ;-) - there's that word again). For our wedding crystal pattern, we had 12 of each glass style. We only have 6 or 8 wine glasses left (they were well loved and sometimes broken), so I don't need to keep 12 tumblers and high ball glasses that we rarely use. Create space for what we value, use and love.

Wedding gifts will be a great topic for a future post. For now, here are a few questions that I'll be reflecting on in my quest to create space.

How do we keep our memories alive when we let go of the things or delete photos? How do we decide which memories are worth treasuring and which are holding us back? Am I holding on to something in an attempt to hold on to my younger self? Am I holding on to something because I used to love it? Am I holding on to something "just in case" it becomes more sentimental?

I have to admit that I will struggle in making space and letting go. It's easier to know something than to act on it. That's one of the reasons that I want to continue my Revive55 Project. It helps to reflect when I'm writing about it. 

I know I will be happier with less, but it will still be difficult to let go.

Revive55 Project Part 2: Make Space

My 55 week Revive55 Project ended a year ago. I thought it was a good time to reflect on the project and look forward.

I started the project in the hopes of preserving all my memories. I was feeling like my collection of photos, videos, stories and mementos was growing and was getting out of control. I was overwhelmed with the quantity and was no longer making photo albums or scrapbooks to preserve them. I had started to make yearly photobooks that could hold four times the number of photos in the same amount of space on my shelf but still felt like I wanted to do better.

I thought that focusing on my memories for 55 weeks would help me to "catch up" and help me better remember my stories and moments.

What I found though was that 55 weeks wasn't enough to preserve it all. I also didn't want to spend that much time preserving instead of creating new memories. Once I "caught up", then what? How would I preserve memories going forward?

The R55 Project started out with a bang. I had lots of plans. I did lots of shopping - buying products that would help preserve and display mementos and photos.

Many "memory projects" planned went undone or ended up half-done. 

During COVID, I saw a meme that said if only I had a week (or a month) at home I'd get my unfinished projects completed. Then COVID gave us months at home and projects still went undone. So as some of my projects went undone, I wondered why. Was it because they weren't important or it wasn't worth the time they would take? How could I complete them in a better way?

Having taken a break and gained perspective, I am ready to re-focus my efforts to finally achieve what I had hoped. What I wanted was to feel like the memories that mattered were being collected and enjoyed.

Home organizers will say that decluttering is the first step to organizing a home. In hindsight, I see that I could have started there, but I wasn't ready. I made the rookie organizing mistake to go buy containers to organize the stuff rather than removing the excess first to see what containers were needed.

I still had a memories journey to take before I was ready to see that I shouldn't want to preserve it all. As much as I did preserve many memories during my Revive55 Project,  I learned that letting go is just as important.

I read the Law of Attraction years ago. Looking back at my notes, I am reminded that Tool #9 is to "create a void or a vacuum". What this means is that we need to create space in order to attract what we want to fill it. The example in the book is in order to attract more clients, we need to make space in our filing cabinet for the new client's file. If the cabinet is bursting at the seams, there is no room for new clients.

When my memory boxes and photo albums were full; I would buy more. Eventually, my shelves and closets were full. My house isn't getting any bigger so I needed a better way. 

Creating a void and making space would make room for new memories and isn't that the point in life is to experience it and not just to collect it?

The other thing I learned during my project is that by preserving it all, we diminish the value of the really special ones. Since my memories were piling up and not "preserved" I started to collect more mementos and to take more photos in the fear of forgetting, but this caused the most memorable ones to get even more lost amid the clutter. The quote I loved was "they are more beautiful if they are few". You can read my blog post about that quote here.

During my project, I was also trying to "unearth" stories I may have forgotten, but I learned that sometimes, we forget stories for a reason. A little digging reminded me of an unpleasant memory. Turns out there was a reason I had forgotten the details. 

My old way of preserving memories was no longer working and I recognized that spending 55 weeks trying to preserve them in the old way wasn't the answer. 

I wanted to find a better way and it needed to start by letting go of the quantity to find the quality.

Knowing that decluttering memories will make me happier doesn't make it easier though. Knowing something sometimes isn't enough to act but I am ready to try.

My new focus of my Revive55 Project will be to make space and to preserve only what is most meaningful.

Reversing Falls in Saint John

Sweet tides, pools of love

Your eyes are full of

Sweet tides, pools of love

Your eyes are full of

(Sweet Tides by Thievery Corporation)

Three years ago, I went to Fredericton for my cousin's funeral. Although the priority was to spend time with family, I thought I'd spend an extra day to see the area. When I researched, I saw that you could see the tide come in or go out in Saint John at Reversing Falls.

To see my vlog for this story, you can click here.

There was a storm as I arrived in Fredericton with lots of snow. It would have been easy for me to decide not to go to Saint John which was more than an hour away. It would have been easy to think that I would go when it was summer. But I decided to go anyway not knowing when I would be back in the area.

I'm so happy I did. There was a viewing spot called SKYWALK where you could watch outside but with it being so cold, I didn't spend too much time there. 

There were glass floor squares behind me. The worker who had shovelled the walk told me not to step on them because they were so slippery. I put my foot on it to see how slippery and he was right!! It would have been worse than walking on an ice rink.

Photo credit: skywalksaintjohn.com

I spent most of my time in the Reversing Falls Restaurant seen in the photo above on their website and seen in my photo below that also includes the glass floor SKYWALK.

Luckily with it being at the beginning of February, it was a quiet day so the staff didn't mind me sitting with at a table with a view for hours. I had a perfect view of the bridge and the tide.

I had looked online to see when the tide would be at its peak and when to arrive. The yellow section below shows how long I was there; from just before peak tide and then more than half of the tide going out.

I initially took a live video then remembered that it would be much better as a timelapse video. I let it run for about an hour but then the battery on my phone was dying. I charged it in the restaurant and grabbed a few more timelapses but never for long enough to get a spectacular video. It's still really cool to see the water rise. In hindsight, it would have been more dramatic to see it go down to see the line of snow where the high tide was.

It's amazing to see the water coming in and then the water goes still as it reaches slack tide. It's only at this time that boats can go by. There were only ducks that swam by while I was there. It wasn't boating season.

It slowly starts to recede before it visibly flows back out.

You can see the level difference in these two shots. It's too bad I couldn't stay longer. I wanted to get back to Fredericton before it got dark.

If you ever make it to New Brunswick, it's worth the time to see the Reversing Falls in Saint John.