I've just had a pretty big "meltdown" emotionally. I had thought that my hoarding was entirely related to my lack of energy due to depression, but as I'm getting rid of things I'm realizing over and over that they are things that were Jim's, or things that Jim had touched or seen...and that he'll never see or touch the new things. I know it's stupid, but it's like I'm erasing him. It's especially true with Rachel's stuff. She was 5 years old when he died and now she's 8. I've gotten rid of clothes that he dressed her in and saw her wearing, toys that he played with with her and picked up, the car seat that he used to buckle her in to. I cut off and kept the button part of the car seat because his thumb used to go right there...it's a spot that I know 100% that he touched exactly there.
So many things have been replaced since he died...the fridge, the dishwasher, one of the toilets. He's never heard of Monster High or Frozen. He doesn't know that she can swim now or that she was a Brownie this year and went on her first overnight camping trip without me with the Brownie group. He doesn't know her best friend, Isabel. He doesn't know that she couldn't see in 3D and he doesn't know that the optometrist gave her a prescription that helps her to see in 3D sometimes and that we're going to an eye specialist to see if we can improve on it. The little girl he knew is disappearing and this bigger girl is growing up in front of me and he will never know her...his own child.
All of this decluttering is throwing me back in to grief. So many feelings are coming up. I want my life to move forward. I don't want my home to be junked up place where I can't have people over. I want to be happy. I want to HAVE a life. I want to get back to work. I feel guilt, though, about erasing him to do it. I feel sad losing more and more of him when I get rid of things that he touched and only have things that he never even knew about here instead. This is really, really hard.