I was clearing out the top shelf of our bedroom closet, the one I can barely reach, when my hand landed on an old shoebox I didn’t recognize.
I pulled it down, expecting old tax papers or a tangle of cords.
Instead, it was letters. Dozens of them, tied with a ribbon gone soft with age. And the handwriting on the top envelope was my husband’s, from back when it was still young and hurried.
I sat right down on the closet floor and forgot all about decluttering.
These were the letters we wrote each other before email, before texting, before you could reach a person in your pocket any hour of the day. From when we were courting. From the years his work took him away for weeks at a time, and a letter in the mailbox was how we stayed close.
I’d forgotten I even kept them. (I’d forgotten a lot of what he said in them, too, and reading it again undid me a little.)
There I was, in the middle of getting rid of things, holding the one box I’d never let go of.
And it reminded me of something we don’t say often enough about clearing out a home. It’s not all about throwing things away. Sometimes the whole point is finding what to do with old love letters and the handful of things that turn out to matter most.
Let me tell you what I learned.
Decluttering Isn’t Only About Letting Go
For years, all I heard about decluttering was the same two words. Let it go.
And there’s truth in that.
Most of us are holding onto far too much, and learning to release it is a real gift. I’ve written plenty about how to let go of sentimental items myself, because it’s hard, and it matters.
But sitting on that closet floor with those letters in my lap, I realized something the “let it go” advice leaves out.
Decluttering isn’t only about getting rid of things. It’s also about finding the few that are worth keeping.
Think about it.