Re: De-cluttering and organization tips?

[Anonymous]

Wow! I feel so much better just to know I’m among others who have some of the problems I have and can understand.

When I was younger, like teens and twenties, I could keep up with it all because there was so much less stuff and I had a lot more energy or stamina.. However, even back then I was accused of tossing it all in a box and hiding the box in a back bedroom. It was always so hard to decide where each individual item should go.

Over the years I could manage fairly well with a partner to help keep me focused and to share the chores but still had a hell of a time deciding what to throw out other than what I call “certifiable trash” and it would sometimes result in arguments. I would pray for vacations from work alone so that I could really get into it and not have to stop to fix a meal, etc. But often my plans would be disrupted by something like a broken air conditioner or whatever.

Now I’m caring for my 88-year-old mother who has alzheimer’s. Mother’s house used to be very clean and nearly perfectly organized although she was cleaning compulsively, changing sheets almost daily because she had forgotten she had just done it yesterday, organizing a drawer she just organized last week, and shredding almost everything in sight including the paperwork I had left with her I needed to settle my dad’s estate including lots of photos. I had gone back to Louisiana to close my business, sell my house and move back to California.

So now we have mother’s stuff, my dad’s stuff and my stuff in one fourth the space. I did throw away a whole lot of stuff in Louisiana so that I could use 4 U-Hauls instead of 5 or 6 to get here and it was really easy to give away most of Dad’s furniture, but sorting through the paperwork is sheer hell. I’m still boxing it and throwing it in the garage to avoid sorting it and then madly dig through all the boxes at tax time.

Mother also had a real estate business which she gave away and thankfully all that paperwork went to the new owner, but we have plenty of file cabinets and desks. She doesn’t clean anything anymore without prompting from me but it has to be simple things. I can give her a sponge and cleanser and she’ll scrub the sink until the finish is gone but she can’t find the trashcan.

Now I have osteo-arthritis, degenerative disk disease and I tore a couple of disks. I can’t stand longer than a few minutes without pain although the torn disks seem to have healed so that it’s not excruciating pain anymore. In the 7 years now that I’ve cared for Mama I’ve also developed high blood pressure and find it difficult to walk without becoming out of breath. Mother is great physically just can’t remember anything. This morning she got out the house at 7:30 AM and walked five blocks down a busy street in her pajamas and stocking feet before the police and I caught up to her. She doesn’t remember it at all.

We’ve had to hire help to do any lifting and to try to work with me to clear out more stuff. We keep a dog for one fellow and he helps by carrying out our trash, changing smoke alarm batteries and light bulbs that require climbing, trimming rose bushes with Mama or walking with her and will prompt me if he doesn’t see enough trash leaving the house regularly. A second fellow just started sorting with me and it looks promising. At least he isn’t put off by the enormity of the problem and I’m guessing it’s because he also has ADD so is sympathetic yet driven to make a dent in it all.

Don’t have much in the way of solutions yet, but to try to cut down on the paper, when tempted to save something written, I put it in an email and mail it to my gmail and file it.

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