Old Photos: Sentimental Gold or Clutter?

By Marilyn Mars / Santa Fe, New Mexico

It’s a rainy Sunday, so you decide to stay indoors and give your bedroom a good clean.  Looking under your bed, you come across boxes and boxes of who-knows-what living below the bed frame. You pull them out, coated with dust bunnies, and lo and behold, you suddenly realize where those old family photographs went. You inherited them from a parent, didn’t know where to put them, so under the bed they went.

What compels us to hoard old photographs? Sometimes, these photos capture an irretrievable moment from long ago. Other times, the photos were passed down to us, and there’s guilt attached to letting them go; people feel as though they are throwing away the person or the event pictured. You may have taken the photographs at special family gatherings. Whatever the case, these meaningful print images can also become an albatross around your neck

Clutter simplified is anything that blocks the flow of energy in a home.  One of the many varieties is sentimental clutter, printed things from your past: photographs, old cards and letters, copies of Playbill from Broadway shows, journals, yearbooks and the like.  Sentimental clutter often consists of items you hold onto for too long because of the memories and emotions they evoke.  Yes, these items are deeply personal, but they can also pile up and tie you down.

As a clutter-clearing expert, I’ve become a detective when I’m working with people and their sentimental papers.  I've learned to ask a lot of questions to get to the root of why people are holding onto these items. More often than not, these nostalgic relics have been cast aside in boxes, bins or in the back of a closet, never to be looked at or enjoyed.  Yet when my clients come across these items, they display a strong emotional tug to keep them.   

I worked with a woman I’ll call Betsy, who had kept 16 large boxes of old photographs packed in a guest room closet, untouched for over 20 years.  She knew she needed to downsize but the thought of letting these photos go was painful to her. And going through them was even more painful.

I pulled out one box, and we sat down together and began to sort.  The more we sifted through the photos and talked, the easier it became for her.  She realized that it was the memories she was holding onto, rather than the physical photos in front of her.  These memories lived within her and had shaped the beautiful person she had become.

Did we get through them all?  Yes!  Did it take two full days?  You bet!  But the 16 boxes had gone untouched for more than two decades.  Betsy culled the images down to two boxes.  The freedom and joy she felt after we finished this process is hard to put into words.

Another story that speaks to this topic is one of my favorites.  I had been working with a woman I’ll call Lisa for a few weeks, clutter-clearing and making a lot of progress.  Then one day we came across some poems from her ex-husband.  She clearly felt a sense of emotional turmoil upon seeing them.  They were from a time when things were good between the two of them.  They had divorced two years earlier, and these poems were the only thing left that still tied them together.  Lisa’s aim was to sell the house and move on with her life.

I asked her a series of questions exploring more of what these poems meant to her.  It became clear that the letters represented some untapped grief.  She was holding onto something from the past that was blocking her from moving on.  We ended the session with the poems still on the shelf.

One week later, I received a phone call from Lisa. Thinking more about the poems, she realized how sad she was that the marriage did not work out.  These poems were a constant reminder of that.  She decided to do a ceremony and burn all the poems, which were clearly weighing her down.

The very next morning she got a call from her ex-husband.  She hadn’t heard from him in six months. He called to inform her he was now ready to sign the papers that would allow her to sell the house.  For two years, the co-ownership of the home had lingered.  When she was finally able to truly let go of this emotional connection, represented by the poems, something dramatically let go and she could now move on with her life.  To me, this is an example of how sentimental clutter can not only weigh on us but also block things in our life.

I’m not suggesting you let go of everything from times gone by.  I’m simply inviting you to become curious about what your sentimental belongings currently mean to you.  Exploring this might give you the freedom to choose what stays in your home and what does not, a chance to let go of the items that burden you and keep those that you cherish.

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Here are a few tips to help you get started with your own photos:

• Throw away those that are blurred or out of focus; people or places you don’t remember; and duplicates or nearly identical photos.
  

• Ask yourself as you go through your photos:
  

  • How often do I look at or enjoy them?

  • Do they add to my life or is it a burden to keep and store them?

  • How much time am I willing to put into sorting and storing them?

  • What will be their fate when I’m gone?

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Marilyn Mars is a clutter-clearing expert and educator, whose passion is discovering the underlying reasons why we hold on to things that no longer serve us in our current lives, Marilyn has worked one-on-one with clients around the country for 15 years and teaches virtual classes year-round. A native of Long Island, N.Y, she took a road trip to Santa Fe in 2001, fell in love with the mountains and decided to stay. She and her husband Guillermo are dedicated hikers.

www.marilynmars.com