I've never been one to scrapbook or even put a photo album together which means I have a ton of photos developed just sitting in boxes waiting for frames. Sometimes when I think about this I have a minor panic attack thinking "oh no" what if I lose them forever? Then I get this grand idea to develop a bunch of photos and frame them all. Then I forget about it, or I develop all the photos and realize, "hm" I don't really want to display all of these photos.
It's funny how we get caught up in the need to display and protect all of our memories in pictures and get overwhelmed by the daunting task of putting them together. I remember ending my scrap booking career in tears and starting many "great" ideas but not finishing them. Some people just have that knack for putting things together and they love doing it, but the thought just makes me nauseous.
I think it's a perfectionist thing to worry over these things and to end up accumulating paper after paper, card after card that may have sentimental value to you and you think you'll someday display but ultimately take up a lot of space and cannot really represent the treasured memories you have within your heart and soul.
Over the years I've become much better about handling my "keepsake" anxiety and learned to accept that I'm no Martha Stewart. I've become a big fan of french memory boards, mainly because I can interchange the photos I want to display.
My next step is to breakdown and buy a decent photo album and just start putting pictures I've developed in it so that I at least have them organized and can rearrange them and date them later on, without the anxiety of creating a theme or themed page. I will also do this in small steps so I don't get overwhelmed or over excited and begin another rash but "great" idea.
I'm also going to begin painting my own wall art and stop looking for the perfect art to hang and match. I want to create large color blocks on canvas and a Coca-cola collage (Bryce loves vintage Coke stuff).
I realize that I probably sound like a crazy person, but there's got to be someone else out there who suffers similarly.
I often have to talk myself down from anxiety by my favorite cognitive therapy exercise I like to call "worst case scenario". This applies to a lot of situations, but I often apply it to the "what if everything was destroyed in say a fire" and I force myself to walk through the anxiety. And guess what? I come out realizing that at the end of the day things are just things, and nothing can destroy the memories stored within ourselves. I'm a living display of many memories. Pictures are nice, keepsakes are nice, but if I lost every-THING, I would be just fine.
Sometimes, I wonder if it might be somewhat freeing to own nothing but what you can carry. I regularly try to reduce clutter and let go of silly things I've attached sentimental value too. And shockingly (ha ha) it has reduced my anxiety.
Another thing that I've tried to do recently is re-use and recycle. If I can get something as a hand me down or at Goodwill or other thrift shop I will and, I feel much better about my purchase. The excess and waste of typical Americans becomes only too real and brutal when one walks down the aisles of Goodwill. It conjures images of the giant mountains of garbage in movies like Wall-E and Idiocracy.
It took me a long time and being a poor college student to learn this simple lesson. It also took a long time to convince my husband to shop at good will too, but he is welcoming it more and more. Especially after his mother revealed to him that she bought all his shirts at Good Will when he was growing like a weed in early middle school. Needless to say Bryce was shocked and it made us laugh hysterically.
All this being said we don't have to deny ourselves and turn to thrifting for everything. It is nice to buy new things, especially if we need them and can't find them elsewhere. And of course there are just some things you can't avoid buying new (i.e. lingerie and socks...he he he.)
Nevertheless we need to be mindful and be good stewards of the earth. It was hard to de-clutter and learn to reuse and recycle at first and is still hard sometimes, but ultimately it causes a lot less anxiety for this psycho at the end of the day.
This post has been mainly a rant for me, so I hope no one will be offended by my strong opinions..lol and mostly it is meant to help distract me from cleaning my apartment from top to bottom at ten o'clock at night.
From the diary of a perfectionist, until 2011 and the 30 days of blogging challenge.
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