Hoarder.... [My Not So Ugly Truth]

Anyone who knows me as well as I know myself - which is no-one - would know that Sunday, more often than not, is my start (over) day. If there ever was a project I needed to commence, a lifestyle change I needed to make or something I've just been meaning to do, I often leave it for Sunday. So it was a Sunday that I chose to complete moving all my things into a new room and, not for the first time, I had to face one of my ugly truths : I'm a hoarder.

Now, I may not be anywhere near the level of compulsive hoarding that you see displayed on  one or two of those reality TV shows that people fancy - where you see persons homes stacked quite literally from basement to roof with things that should have long been towed away by the garbage  man - but when I stop to think about it I'm not too different from them either. In fact, my hoarding ways seem to come from much the same place as theirs.

I, like my crazed counterparts, have difficulty separating myself from things. It’s an aspect of my human condition that I both appreciate and abhor at the same time. I, like the compulsive hoarder, will utilize several tools of self-deception in order to hold on to anything - you’d be surprised at the ridiculousness of some of the rationale we use to keep things - chief among them:  “I might need it later”.

Yes, anyone who would ever call himself a hoarder knows exactly what I'm talking about. This is the first barrier we encounter when it is we are to dispose of anything we posses. But on this particular Sunday (like others in the past where I had to make these difficult decisions) I had to get real with myself. And this is where the bargaining begins. “Anthony what are you really going to do with this lab report on the The Isolation of Plasmid DNA from E.coli  ? You've never read that document on UWI Social Media Policy. And how, just how, are you ever going to use that high school notebook with debate speeches?”

Oh the bargaining : “Take solace in the fact that you can keep all your old comic book scripts. Fine, you can keep the stack of blank folder leaves and graph sheets, but the reports go. Trophies fine, the expired gift certificate, NO!.”

Now it’s interesting to note that a lot of the things tossed out on this particular Sunday had previously survived other bouts of “cleaning out”. How? The next major tool in my tool box : sentimentality.

I can often find some reason, some meaning behind why I should keep something. The most often used, and least reasonable of all, it’s memories. The notion that every single item we have has some memory attached and that it would be sad to lose it, and the memories, forever is one that far too often would win me over and keep my “keep pile” far too large. I have terrible autobiographical memory so keeping things means keeping their memory alive.

I remember the last time I was home and my aunt was renovating. Just lying out there in the yard was my old closet. In fact, it wasn't just my old closet. It had served more than generation. So it wasn't just my memories lying out in the yard, but memories that might have spanned thirty years to half a century. Who knows how long? It was there before I was born.

Perhaps it is my great grandmother whom I should blame for my hoarding ways and sentimentality towards objects, particularly antiques. She herself seemed to be a minor hoarder. I was always fascinated by the things I’d find tucked away in, and displayed on, her old furniture. Whenever I would go through these things (give me a break, kids do this stuff all the time) I would come across old trinkets, jewellery, photographs,letters, birthday and holiday cards, even dated birth certificates. She had a hoard of interesting glasses that I've never seen used, in my near 24 years, just sitting in a glass-paned cabinet. I would marvel at the fact that they were from another time, before I even existed, and imagined what those times were like when those photographs were first taken, the jewellery first worn and letters first read. I was always fascinated and delighted that they were preserved so that a neophyte to life, like myself, could stretch his imagination and wonder at the memories of before his time.

I hold on to things. But it’s more than just the memories or the usefulness.I hold to things, to my things, because they are mine and I love my things. Once something is mine I work to keep it.This is one of the things I do admire about my quirky personality. Perhaps there in the hoarder lies the capacity to bond so simply, yet profoundly , to an external that he would hold on to for the rest of his life… Perhaps...

JUST FOR THE FUNNY :