I’ve always been a minimalist. Minimalizing was an every-6-month cleanout obsession when my husband and I lived in an under-700-square-foot one-bedroom condo for over 16 years.
As the brain fog is lifting from my mother’s death at the end of October 2023, the urge to minimalize is showing its shiny little fangs.
The timing couldn’t be better. After over a year of frustration, I’m making peace with arthritis in my hands as a result of family heredity and 50 years of crocheting, as well as admitting that my collection of purses has become a stack of bags that doesn’t work for my life as it is now. It was time to address all the yarn and bags in boxes in my office.
A Garden of Neuro Institute sister, Tina Hudak, posted an article about Swedish death cleaning (below). Light bulb! It rattled around in my brain for a bit, and I realized it was time to have the talk with my husband about buying grave markers for the plots we purchased 8 years ago, the last step (I hope) to finish up preparations for our deaths.
Over a nice Italian lunch, I suggested to my husband that we come up with a humorous inscription for our grave marker. What was left of our families lived several states away and were unlikely to visit us. Our friends would probably forget us after the funeral lunch. So why not have some fun? He was horrified. And then he started to enjoy the idea. We haven’t come up with the final inscription yet, but we’re still thinking about it.
I’m working on my last crochet project now. Today, I plan to take one of my yarn bins to the local thrift shop.
I offered a friend first dibs on my purses last week. If I don’t hear from her this week, they all go to that same thrift shop next week.
Thanks to Tina for telling me about Swedish death cleaning:
published in Entropy
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