Who lives in our flat?

When my DH and I moved in together we both brought a full household of stuff with us. Since it was DH who moved into my existing flat, he was the lucky one when it came to decluttering, because we did sift through his stuff before packing it up, and a lot of items didn´t make it to the now belonging to both of us flat in the first place.Still, he brought enough items to turn what used to be my home office and library into our clutter room. And the living room has grown several more shelves and cupboards, plus an extra desk, a table and several cocktail chairs, nothing to say of the big couch.
So, the roomy and airy flat I had furnished for myself isn´t quite as roomy any more. I, too, did inherit a big armchair from Grandma´s estate that I would not ever give up because not only does it hold a lot of memories, it´s also very comfortable, and I sit in it every day.
Since we are not about to move into a bigger flat, all these things are by now literally fencing us in.
Of course, the simple solution would be weeding them out ruthlessly.
But I have a big problem with throwing out things that have memories attached to them. Especially when they are memories of dear people who have departed this world.
I realized that once again when I dealt with those curtain rods over the weekend.
Even though their plastic end pieces had broken a long time ago, they still were the tangible proof that my aunt had cared about me enough to give me a housewarming present.
I had had the same dicussion with myself when it was time to deal with an ancient refrigerator and washing machine which my Granny had given me the money to buy as a student. Now, it´s been almost seventeen years since she died, so, these appliances had certainly done their job for an appliance lifetime. Still, I hesitated for a long time to replace them with modern appliances because throwing them away felt so much like throwing my Grandma´s love away.
The kicker was, in both instances, the feeling that those gifts by my dear departed relatives must absolutely be kept because there would not be any more gifts forthcoming from the givers and I felt obliged to keep them in honor of them.
With the big appliances, the decision made itself easier when they finally broke down completely. As I needed a refrigerator and a washing machine, and there was no room to keep the broken gadgets, having them hauled away when the new items were delivered was, while it made me sad, a natural process.
But what if the items are small? I have plenty of things that I keep just because they were once used by someone dear to me. Some of them, like Grandma´s armchair, or her needle box which I still use, see regular use. Some, like her ancient bread slicing machine or her coffee mill, I proudly display because they are, as well as still functioning, also decorative.
These have every right to be there, and they make me smile every time I see or use them.
But there is another kind of sentimental stuff that would, to any uninformed person, just be clutter.
Still, when it comes to throwing it away, I balk.
Which resulted in my weeding out my own clutter quite thoroughly, but keeping things that, had they been mine from the start, would have taken the exit road long ago, just because they had been the property of my grandparents or my aunt.
Now, I find myself having more clutter that is there because it used to belong to someone else than I have stuff of my own that has become clutter, because the latter by now gets thrown away quite quickly. 
It´s almost as if my departed relatives had taken up physical residence in our flat- spooky! 
Intellectually, I know that clutter is clutter no matter who first owned it.
I also know that my memories of my relatives, and the knowledge that we loved each other, do not depend on the physical existence of those things. The chipped cup was not my Grandma, and the curtain rods were not my Aunt Mary.
But I still have to remind myself of that. And I have to decide for myself which pieces I want in my flat, and which ones, even if they were loved by my relatives, simply are not fitting into the life I want to have.
I have given my relatives a space in my heart where I will always remember them, but I do not have to keep their stuff to prove it.
So, the litmus test will be if I would bring it into my flat if it weren´t already there. And the things that do not pass that test I may let go in peace.



Julia