Confessions of a bunny-holic

I’m sure I should have kept a precise census of all the stuffed animals I had before down-sizing. But it’s been hard enough deciding what to get rid of and what to keep, in every category. Counting them seemed like a stupid amount of extra effort.

The one thing I am still finding after 29 huge leaf bags, is more and more bunnies and rabbits. I think man, what was up with the rabbits? Yes, they multiple, but not usually in this setting. Think I’ve figured it out, finally. Any given day, in any stuffed animal selection, or toy store, you’ve hopefully not a nice little variety of animals. Some bears, dogs or cats, some assorted wildlife or fish, and so on. You’d probably think bears would win out over everything, given the classic teddy bear availability. (except lately where unicorns are over-running the market.) So why on earth do I have mounds and mounds of rabbits? Because every year, year after year, we get inundated with rabbit stuffies at Easter. Sure, sometimes there are some chicks or sheep, but the vast majority are bunnies. And like Pringles, you can’t have just one. If they come in blue, yellow, pink, green, blue, and purple, well, it’s a good chance that I got at least 2 or 3 of them. Or even the browns. I’ve found lovely textured and relatively realistic-ish looking fur on some of them. But when it comes in white, light, medium and dark brown, again, even if I don’t have every single one released, chances are I got at least a couple varieties. And like Marie Kondo suggests, I probably evaluated each one of them individually, as if in a vacuum of space and time. I looked at a new arrival on its own merits, not compared to the ever-increasing mountain I had at home. Those previous acquisitions were completely out of sight and mind. I’m sure I looked at each new flock of rabbits each year with unprejudiced open-ness to whether it, on its own merits, was worthy of coming home to stay with me. New bunnies every single year for over 25 years. Yeah, you do the math. And that’s not counting any other incidental bunnies still available all year long. Maybe bunnies used to be as ubiquitous as unicorns are now. I would have thought nothing of it as long as I liked them. They’re probably a good small child staple. Maybe they were the new teddy bears of the day.

For winter holidays, I had several penguins, bears, and moose with winter sweaters or scarves, but nothing like the population of bunnies. No one has flooded the winter market like they do with bunnies in spring. Not even Coca-cola bears, and believe me, I have a few of those too.

Other Commentary

Interesting thoughts today. Youtube brought up a video with some psychological commentary on Marie Kondo’s method, so I thought fine, I’ll bite. It wasn’t saying that it was horrible across the board, but that it did tend to focus on material items, and that may not be the best source of joy, and that it can be a catalyst for people who already have, or a tendency for psychological issues. No arguments there. One could even argue, gee, the book is about organizing and evaluating possessions, and that’s the whole point, so yeah, it talks about material possessions. Kind of like critiquing a financial advise book for being too centered on money.

From there, somehow I got listening to a presentation by Gabrielle Bernstein. I’ve vaguely heard of her before, didn’t get completely sucked in, but moderately intrigued. Lots of nice little ideas. But then where to start? She has several books out already. Guess that emphasizes that I need to get a library card. There are lots of good books out there, but I don’t want to buy every single one in order to read it. I admit I bought the Kondo books, but I had already decided I would need to re-read more than once. And why read all of Gabby’s books when you could go straight to the source and read the 1300+ page book A Course in Miracles? Ok, maybe she is more like the Cliff Notes version. I don’t know, as I haven’t read either.

I guess it just brings up that I do feel lacking in lots of areas. There are so many self-help books and ideas and classes out there . . . I just end up feeling easily overwhelmed. Where to start? What is the absolute best resource so you can get right to it and not waste time and effort with mediocre ones? I could use a pick-me-up as evaluating and clearing things out has been a bit draining lately. It feels like I’m not making progress, and the front room is so cluttered, I can’t locate things I once could. Bringing things home from work sucked too, even though I’ve brought quite a bit back. Apparently I need 3 different types of lotion. Maybe not all on the same day, but for various days/dryness during the week, I had to bring one back in. I admit I’m high maintenance. I don’t like trucking everything like that back and forth on a daily basis.

Well, in any case, I guess I’m feeling a little bummed, and I probably am looking in all the wrong places for relief. And as long as we’re looking for enlightenment, the classically trained church-goer in me scolds me for considering any other reading material outside classic scripture. How could you beat that, right? Yet . . . let me steep myself in sacrilege by comparing to exercising. I’ve heard the ideal is say, an hour, first thing in the morning, before eating anything. But if you’re not a morning person, or have to eat before you exercise, does that mean you’re doomed? Is it really all or nothing? Would you tell a person to not exercise in the afternoon at all because it deviates from the ideal? Maybe I do need cliff notes versions once in a while.

20 bags down

20 stuffed animal bags officially sorted. I am so sick of this.

To keep . . . or not to keep

One thing I occasionally struggle with is my spiritual upbringing that tells me that if I enjoy these material items, I’m looking for comfort and joy in all the wrong places. That argument is probably true enough. And it’s not as if you can take these things with you when you die. One could argue if you really have to have a stark and minimal existence in this life even if you do believe in one hereafter.

But to me it seems like it’s two separate arguments; spending inordinate amounts of money on silly things, or wanting to keep some silly things that you already have. I won’t argue that I did spend a stupid amount of effort and money acquiring these things. Or that there could be better pursuits than snuggling with a stuffed animal after a stressful day at work. But one could argue there are also worse things. Again, the stupid purchases have already been made, and the money wasted. We’re not talking about being able to return or resell these items and recoop money, only giving them away. I guess some of the point is to regain some space, but that’s not the highest motivator here when I’m looking at beloved possessions I already have. The question is whether it’s worth the space to keep them here, if they have the potential to give me enough joy that it warrants them taking up space here. And since I’ve had so much MORE stuff taking up in ordinate amounts of space, I probably don’t have the best perspective yet.
15 bags down.

Still sorting stuffies

I think I’ll have to say goodbye to the M&M plushes. I had already resigned that we wouldn’t keep the 3 foot tall blue one. But recently I emptied the bag with the four smaller ones. They’re cute, and certainly might make me smile occasionally, but they’re probably only a 6 on the joy scale. Certainly better than average, but maybe not quite as joyful as when I first got them.

Today I had the opportunity to see something I was giving away spark joy in someone else. It’s not that I’m rating everything on a scale of 1-10, but I think this large penguin was probably a 7 or 7.5 for me. And there are so many 9s and 10s I’m clutching onto, and this one was so big, I decided to let it go. It literally elicited a squeal of delight when she heard she could have it (this was an adult, by the way, not a small child). I guess that’s the best I could ask for – to have these things go to good homes where people can appreciate them at least as much as I did, if not more. I feel badly getting rid of a 2+ foot long Meeko because I doubt someone as obsessed with that raccoon as I was will find it in the thrift store down the street. Why do I feel compelled to part with it? Because I have TWO. And don’t have the time and energy to sell everything off one by one. I am already practically mortified by how much that storage unit costs a month. We couldn’t make enough selling things to substantiate keeping the place longer. I think it was great that my husband was understanding enough to allow me to get it in he first place (as the stuff is primarily mine, even if he occasionally appreciates the stuff), but it’s ridiculous to dump much more money into it. We have now made it through bag 13.

Slump

My decluttering has taken a sour turn. I can’t evaluate things purely on their ability to spark joy. I keep thinking about how big the keep pile already is, and whether or not I have enough room for anything else. Or I think how it was buried and I hadn’t been appreciating it lately, therefore I don’t deserve to enjoy it, or how someone else should be able to enjoy it more than me. Or even worse, I feel guilty having spent money on these things in the first place, that I don’t feel like I deserve to have anything enjoyable. Perhaps the pure joy items haven’t truly left, but a lot of happy things feel like they have been chucked out the window. I guess things can’t spark joy if you feel guilty about having them, but it doesn’t necessarily feel better getting rid of them either. Nothing you can’t live without, but you still hate getting rid of, and things that creep into your thoughts days later, wondering why it would have been so evil to keep. I’ve already wasted the money at this point. It’s not as bad as wanting to buy new junk, is it? Yet it feels evil of me to want to keep things. I feel like I would trapped either way. Though at this point I‘m just sighing dolefully and telling myself I have to get rid of stuff. Like that’s my punishment for not being more responsible in the first place.

Clutter can be like Geese

Went through most of the stuffies on the couch. Friday we brought home 2 more bags, and by Saturday morning, only put the really obvious ones in bags to take to the grandparents (extended family always visits and can pick through and take what they want). They said within 2 hours only one bag was left. I’m ready to go back for more. After all, Konmari says to do this all in one fell swoop. It’s not that you can do it all in one day, but in one prolonged event. We already took 2 or 3 days break last week that I didn’t feel that I needed. I’m just saying, I’m on a roll, and I want to keep going. The only problem is that I keep taking away room on the couch and J has no where to play video games and hang out with the cats. Right now I have 2 cushions completely cleared off for him. Yesterday the entire thing was covered. I would have to compare it to the Canadian geese where we live. We seem to have geese at least 9 months out of the year. One could say that doesn’t make sense, because they are supposed to go south for the winter. I seriously think they do. But all fall and winter, I think we have different geese moving through here. Maybe ones from northern Canada do winter here because it is mild enough in comparison. So it’s the same with the couch. We are making progress, and things are moving through, but it can seem disheartening when there is always clutter, even though it is different clutter moving through.