My wife is on a first-name basis with too many people who work at Nordstrom.
I recently asked if she ever felt buyer’s remorse. She said, “Sometimes when I buy something, I have remorse that I didn’t get it in more than one color.”
She’s always clipping coupons and finding great deals. But her conspicuous consumerism is cluttering our home.
Every week, we have to clean up before the cleaning lady arrives, squeezing more and more stuff into drawers, cabinets, closets and extra rooms where the cleaning lady isn’t paid enough to tread.
Sometimes, I wish the house would burn down so we could start over again.
Kathryn Porter, 34, a stay-at-home mom in Colorado Springs, has some better ideas. She is the author of “Too Much Stuff: De-Cluttering Your Heart and Home,” which she’ll be promoting at the annual trade show by the CBA, formerly the Christian Booksellers Association. The trade show, at the Colorado Convention Center, runs Sunday through Thursday.
“Shopping is not a sport,” Porter said. (Did you read that, honey?) And getting organized is a spiritual process.
“It’s learning to trust that you are going to be OK,” Porter said, “that God will take care of you, that you don’t need to stock up in unrealistic proportions.”
Porter grew up in a cluttered home. When her mother passed away in 2004, she went through a lifetime’s worth of her stuff, walking through trails in the house. “It was just boxes everywhere,” Porter said. “She wanted to get organized. She tried. She was putting everything into bins. But bins are not the answer. It’s getting rid of stuff.”
Porter realized she’d taken on many of her mother’s habits. She’d also taken on habits from her grandparents – saving everything, just in case of an emergency.
“Our world today is different from the 1920s and 1930s,” Porter said. “For one thing, there are grocery stores on every corner. I really had to adapt myself to a just-in-time buying philosophy.”
Parting with material goods is hard to do. Trying to cure herself, Porter decided to write a book. Released in March by Beacon Hill Press, it has sold more than 3,800 copies.
It’s part self-help, part sermon: “Clutter mentally and physically sucks the life out of us and traps us in a life we were never meant to have,” Porter writes on her website, www.clutterwise.com.
It’s a psychological disorder, often caused by advertising. Overcoming it means parting with stuff thought to have value, which for many is an act of faith.
Porter said she turned to a Christian publisher because she “read that the Christian market was a little easier to break into than the regular market.”
She worried that “no Christian publisher would want this because it’s not Jesus-y enough.” But she had highlighted her chapters with inspirational Bible verses, which she thought might not be attractive to a secular publishing house, either.
“You don’t have to believe in God for this to help you,” she said.
On her website, Porter offers links to organizations that I never knew existed, such as the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. Apparently, this group’s mission is to help complete slobs. It has developed a tool called the “Clutter-Hoarding Scale.”
No. 1 on this scale is a normal home, defined with such descriptors as “all doors and stairways accessible,” and “no odors.” No. 5 on the scale is so scary I can’t even mention all the characteristics, but here are a few:
“Hazardous material or contaminants storage exceeds local ordinances; kitchen and bathroom unusable due to clutter; rotting food.”
Porter enjoys speaking to groups, writing and even coaching people on organizational skills. But don’t expect her to come over to your house and clean up. It’s hard enough coaching people to throw stuff away or drop off a bag at Goodwill.
Porter says she has been to too many homes littered with food wrappers, pop bottles, piles of junk mail, cardboard boxes, books, magazines and countless items bought on sale at Wal-Mart.
“Some people are just lazy,” she said. “Others have hoarding issues and need some counseling. … It is emotionally exhausting to help people.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis, 303-820-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
