The term I’m using a lot these days is “anti-nesting.” Let me explain.
Nesting begins when you set up housekeeping for the first time. After college, after marriage, what have you. There is an undeniable pull to put your mark on Your Space by adding more and even MORE “stuff” to your personal habitat.
Women call it nesting, although I don’t think it’s a trait exclusive to women. Men, too, have a tendency to collect all sorts of stuff, although perhaps not as copiously as what we girls can achieve once we’ve put our minds to it. Guys, I have found, seem to lean toward certain “categories of stuff” – tools, hunting and fishing gear, electronic equipment and so forth.
Of course there is a bit of slopping back and forth between the sexes. My hubby loves to golf, visiting the courses weekly or more. His clubs are a favorite possession. I’m not a golfer, so I don’t relate, but I know women who would sooner be on the golf course than visiting a luxury day spa. On the other hand, I have found more than a few folks of the male persuasion who discuss with me cameras, favorite lenses and the like. I mean, talk about f-stops – whew!
Lest I omit a trendy passion that includes abundant collecting and crosses the gender divide, pulse rates of many men and women are elevated during conversations about the latest kitchen gadgets, cooking methods and plating styles.
Lately, though, I’ve found myself experiencing a new phenomenon – I call it “anti-nesting” or letting go of stuff. And I’m not sure if this occurrence is a result of getting on in years (I classify myself as a very, very young old person) or of simply reaching a saturation point.
This marvel first became obvious to me several months ago when I perused my bookcases looking for a novel I wanted to re-read. Normally I love my floor to ceiling bookcases jam-packed with books of all sorts. But that day I was feeling irritated because the book I wanted wasn’t where it should be.
Now, this is obviously nothing new with me. In my head, I have the world’s greatest organizational system. Yes, I can out-systematize the Grande Dame of home management, Martha Stewart. In my head, mind you. In practicality, my categorization efforts are a work in perpetual progress. As a result, now and again my retrieval skills reach a breaking point.
Thus began the slow discarding – or anti-nesting – around my house. And I found a brilliant scheme. Or rather my younger daughter hit upon it when she was cleaning out a closet or some such at her own house.
Onto my cell phone one day came a photo of a vase and a text message that read, “Do you want my crap?” Well. This strategy became an instant family sensation as my older daughter and I jumped onto the bandwagon.
Now we have all sorts of versions: “Do you want my kitchen crap?” (mixing bowls, small appliances) or “Do you want my office crap?”(file folders, special copy paper) and even “Do you want my Christmas crap?” Yes, Christmas decorations run amok at my house, and nothing makes me happier than taking a cell phone photo of a cute Santa and firing it off to my daughters with the hope they’ll take the thing off my hands.
Of course we don’t just endlessly trade things back and forth. For collectors like me, I feel good about taking things I no longer need or use to the charitable donations drop-off. I like knowing those possessions I painstakingly gathered will be new again to someone else.
Some things are still off limits, though, when it comes to streamlining my space, such as gifts from friends and family and mementoes of times gone by. But I’m getting better! Just last week I gathered all of my travel-size shampoo bottles and poured them into a giant container. Although something tells me I’ve created some unpleasant hazardous waste material. Hmmm … this anti-nesting still warrants a bit of tweaking.
Meanwhile, anybody need some barely-used Bert and Ernie bedroom slippers?
