Chapter 2

2. Do You Have Too Much Stuff?

“I had plans for that rock!”

—A hoarder, from the TV show Hoarders

“One bar of soap every four weeks; thirteen bars of soap per year; fifty-eight bars of soap will last almost four and a half years. I have four-and-a-half years’ worth of soap in my linen closet. Is that enough? Well, yes, but the price will only increase, they aren’t going to go bad, and I have room to store them, so maybe I’ll buy just one or two more packs (with sixteen bars per pack) the next time I go to Costco.”

—Me, in my brain, justifying why I bought yet more soap

The first quote, above, is from a hoarder. On the show, she would not get rid of anything and her sister, in frustration, picked up a rock the hoarder had been keeping and threw it across the yard. Her response? “I had plans for that rock!”

One of the thoughts that kept coming up for me when I would watch the show Hoarders was how absolutely powerful denial could be for people. Parents, who did really love their children, were literally days away from having their children removed from their care due to the state of their home, and they would still say, “It isn’t that bad.” Other people were days away from losing their home, due to having so much stuff inside and outside of the home. They would still fight tooth and nail to keep the stuff, even though it was crap and destroying their and their children’s lives. That is how powerful denial is.

It is easy to look at other people, who clearly have a problem with stuff, with a combination of shock, disgust, and relief. Relief in that at least you “aren’t that bad.” We judge others as a way of separating ourselves from them—able to feel better about ourselves because at least we are not as bad off as they are.

If you are going to be completely honest with yourself though, maybe you are. No, you don’t have spoiled food sitting in your house and you can walk throughout your house easily. But you still have that “collection” of hundreds of magazines that you are never going to read. You have that stash of fabric that even if you sewed eight hours a day, every day for the rest of your life, you wouldn’t use all of it. You have jewelry piece after jewelry piece that you don’t wear, or those tools you are keeping because you may use them someday. You still have boxes you haven’t even unpacked from moving two years ago. And for those who love to read, do I need to mention the books?

When I write about excess goods, I am including the items that aren’t really you. It isn’t just about how many things you have, but whether or not you even really like those things.

For me, the things I loved were household goods. The real problem started after I graduated law school and got a job at Williams Sonoma while waiting for my bar exam results. I had always loved the store, and I cooked and baked. We got a 40 percent discount on anything in the store, or from Pottery Barn. I was using twenty-plus-year-old thin towels, mismatched twenty-year-old cheap sheets, and everything in my kitchen I had gotten at yard sales and I didn’t feel proud to use. The products at Williams Sonoma were better than anything I had ever seen, much less used. They were beautiful and of high quality, and I felt good just being in the store—and I would have them for life. This was an investment. I also would never get another chance like this—40 percent off? Are you kidding me? Of course I am buying the stuff, and as much as I can get my hands on.

I also wanted to provide my son with a nice home and nice things so he could be proud and not embarrassed when friends came over, although he had never been embarrassed to have friends over previously. Our home had always been clean, tidy, and nice. However, I wanted him to experience having nicer things, even though he could have cared less about the thread count of the sheets he was sleeping in.

I also wanted to feel normal and have what other people had. Actually, I wanted more than normal. No one else I knew had a full set of All-Clad cookware. My point is that some of my reasons for wanting to buy things at Williams Sonoma did serve me. They certainly made rational sense, to a point. However, many others were totally tied into my ego.

From the first day I qualified for my discount, I went nuts. Absolutely nuts. I would walk out of the store with four huge bags nearly every shift. I had the largest set of cookware you could get and still had additional pieces. Even though I had never had more than two people over for dinner, I had a set of dinnerware for twelve. I continue to use that set every day mind you, but still. I had two different kinds of electric juicers, plus two manual ones. Don’t get me started on how many cookbooks I had. At one point I had three, yes three, butter curlers. One was modern, for those hip dinner parties; one was fancy, for the queen; and one was for everyday use. How many times do you think I used any of the butter curlers? Not once.

My little apartment looked like a combination of Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma. Even though I put every purchase I made on a credit card, I still felt great. I had a home I was proud of. I had stuff people commented on. People wanted to cook in my kitchen because I had the cool stuff. I felt wonderful, for a short time.

When I look back at it now though, probably well over half, if not more, of the stuff I bought was ridiculous, I didn’t use, and I don’t have today. However, this hit of juice really started my buying frenzies.

Within months of starting at Williams Sonoma, I got my first job as an attorney. I had a tiny bit of disposable income for the first time in my life. After feeling deprived for so many years, or so I told myself, I kept on buying—even though my home already looked like a store. Now I also “had” to look the part of a professional. Yes, I did need new items of clothing, but no, I didn’t need as many as I got.

I never wanted to want for anything in my home. So, I started to stock up at Costco. Toiletries, soaps, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and other consumables were a hot ticket for me. Yes, as referenced at the beginning of this chapter, at one point I figured out I had enough soap for over four years. And I still felt like one more pack would make me feel better, more secure.

My type of collecting differed, along with the severity of the hoarding, but my thought process really wasn’t that different from the lady who “had plans for that rock.” Whether it was a rock or a nice handbag, “one more” was going to make me feel better. The category of stuff is irrelevant.

I have a friend whose thing was old magazines and fabric. I have another dear friend, Karen, who quilts. She needs fabric to quilt, and she has enough fabric, right now, that if she quilted fourteen hours a day, every single day until she was 120 years old, she would still not use all of the fabric she has currently. Yet, she still buys more.

I have another friend, Amanda, who went to art school. She took out extra student loans to buy very expensive Dutch oil paint. Over fifteen years later, and after many moves, she still has many cans of that paint unopened.

The first step in examining your relationship with stuff is to get real. Real with yourself. Don’t get me wrong, we are smart. We can rationalize keeping anything. Just know that rationalizing is lying to yourself, and you are only hurting yourself by doing so.

So, what is your “thing”? What do you have that you know is excessive? If you even have one piece of clothing that you don’t feel great about wearing, much less doesn’t actually fit you, then you have excess stuff. If you are keeping even one book for the “someday” that you might read that book, it is excess.

If you are ready to be honest with yourself, then keep reading. Move forward without judgment or shame. There are reasons you have too much stuff. We will get to those reasons. None of them include the fact that you are a bad person, stupid, fucked up, or any other quality that deserves shame. Be kind to yourself, please.

Do you have too much stuff?

If your most honest and immediate answer is not a solid “no,” then the answer is really yes. If there is even a hint of defensiveness or rationalization, or you can’t keep a totally straight face, then the answer is yes. If your first thought was “No, and here is why,” then it is really a yes. Here are some more indications that yes, you have too much stuff:

• Anyone has ever suggested, in any way, that perhaps you have a lot of stuff.
• You have clothing that doesn’t fit you and you are not comfortable wearing, or you have thirty cups in the cupboard but only use the same ten over and over again.
• You buy things because they are pretty or cool but find that you don’t use them.
• You have ever found yourself short on money, yet you have a home full of stuff or relatively expensive items.
• You have any trouble getting...