I’ve found an interesting relationship to ‘things’ since my daughter died. On one hand I kept every envelope that related to her in some way and on the other found myself letting go of possessions that I’d previously struggled to get rid of for years. On the surface I think I’m organised and things are pretty functional and not cluttered but I’ve historically struggled with those half finished projects that I know I’ll get back to finishing one day and they take up space and just hang around.

When we came home from the hospital I found it interesting how much of a nice connection I had to the things I really liked and had bought or created especially for our new life, anything that I had just held onto or kept just in case I felt far less positive towards, and started to let things go quite naturally. I wasn’t planning to declutter but I just found myself seeing things in a new perspective and thinking that if the time came to use something like that, would I want that exact version or am I holding onto the idea of it and would want to replace it anyway? Or I now had the clarity to give myself the permission needed to get rid of something that once served me, maybe I’d spent a lot of money on it or hadn’t quite finished with it, either way some of these things easily and quietly left the house.

I filled the charity bags that were dropped off in the post, anonymously leaving them on the doorstep to be collected, I sold lots of things on Vinted and found that in particular started to give me quite a lot of satisfaction and purpose. I felt in the early days that I wouldn’t even be able to ever reply to an email again but somehow having manageable quick wins that I could break up into bite size tasks strengthened my life skills muscles again in a way that felt very me. Every stage from working out what I wanted to sell, to uploading it, to then making sure it was dropped off in time all gave me little wins and I think in ways boosted my confidence again in a way I wouldn’t have expected or thought was needed.

These tiny tasks would have historically fit in around countless other projects and responsibilities, but they became a focus for me when my husband was settling back into work, this was affectionately known as my ‘job’. I did it very consistently for months and still do from time to time, but it serves a more functional purpose now and doesn’t have the same dopamine hit it once did but I still see it as one of those things that got me through. It didn’t make it better but gave me a little focus and helped build me again at a time where I honestly felt like I couldn’t ever be a functioning adult again. I was managing just about in other areas like keeping on top of my health and our home but those projects or little improvements that felt like they made me, me were so far away and this focus on letting go of the physical items that no longer served me nudged me in that direction again.