Nothing Like Watching "Hoarders" to make you Clean Your Refrigerator

Grey Gardens was a documentary film made about Jackie Onassis spinster cousins in 1975.  It seems that these two aristocratic women fell upon hard times.  The home that was once beautiful, located in the prestigious neighborhood of East Hampton, N.Y., was now the home of a hoarder.  It needed repairs and to be brought up to code to be inhabitable.  Jackie O. paid $32,000 to do repairs and the hoarder's sons, paid the back taxes on their childhood home so their mother and sister could live there.

The documentary was so sad to watch.  I felt the family's privacy was severely invaded with the film. We all have family members we are not proud of but to put this into a film for all to see was sad to me. (No privacy when you are in the limelight.)

Not a TV fan, occasionally, after a long day, I will sit down to peruse the channels.  I saw Grey Gardens on TCM and tuned in.  Some people watch hoarders to make themselves feel better about their lives, but when I see this it upsets me tremendously and makes me want to rid my house of every single extra thing not being used.

Our one son has adopted the minimalist lifestyle. He mentioned us decluttering our house for comfort and simplicity in our environment.  So I began working on this last year and it does feel better.

I watched another documentary on NetFlix it was titled "Minimalism." These two authors believe that they were accumulating more, more, things, more stuff, to fill a void inside and found themselves to be "unhappy."  They lived paycheck to paycheck and with every raise they bought more stuff and put themselves behind the eight ball again.  Always working for stuff with no end in sight.  So they became minimalists, gave up working all the time and found happiness. Their website offers some free reading material if you want to know more www.theminimalists.com

This work treadmill is a trap. I know of a specialist doctor who was diagnosed with cancer and told his sister he could not stop working for treatment and rest because if he did not work every week, his office staff would not get paid.  This guy had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, he had professional friends, dinner parties, vacations, and the appearance of being well off  but he was trapped by his things.

Depression era parents created some of this madness for sure. Remember me and my pickles?

Where is the line one crosses from being comfortable with nice things and being trapped by your life? Where is the line with having enough and having too much to become a hoarder?  Our children are figuring this out and this next generation will do much better living life free on their terms.

In the meantime I was running to clean out my refrigerator today!