Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Thank you to whoever linked this answer to a question I never even read properly: the truncated page title is enough for me: "I love myself and I love my mom but..."

I'm a Certified Professional Organizer; this is part of what my colleagues and I do with a lot of our clients who are having trouble making decisions regarding whether, when, and how to let go of things that are either theirs (but not part of their active lives anymore) or possessions of someone else.

First, almost nothing needs to go into a dumpster. Most non-personalized things have a value to someone via charity, and personalized things (letters, photos, awards) can be dealt with by evaluating a little at a time, scanning or taking photos, and reducing it to what's truly meaningful vs. what just happens to have been your loved one's possession. We often feel like we should have a sentimental attachment to something, so we assume that we do.

Walking through the items with someone else is key to making progress. Professional organizers are trained to ask you the right questions and, based on your reactions, know how to prompt you toward healthy ways of thinking about the items. However, even having a friend come over and spend an hour at a time with you, in small chunks, can help. Often, just "telling the story" behind an item is enough to help you feel confident that you can let it go.

Preventing yourself from being exhausted or weary comes down to a) doing it in small chunks*, particularly if you're doing it on your own or not with a professional, b) letting some items marinate if you can't make a decision with a sense of confidence. (Just put them in a second box or bin for round 2, rather than mixing them in with the not-yet-examined items.) However, if you find that you're not able to make any decision on item after item, that's a sign that you're not ready for the process yet, or at least not without guidance. Give yourself grace; everyone's timetable is different. (Focusing on your own items, before dealing with your mother's, may also be an easier path for you.)

*By small chunks, I usually advise people working on their own to do no more than 45 minutes per day. Then pack up and take one box to donate (rather than letting things pile up in your house, not in the storage closet). Then see how you feel. Think progress, not perfection. Don't overwhelm yourself.

You'll often find that you're going to come down to "why?" over and over. Why did this come into your (or her) life? Why is it still here? Why (under what circumstances) might I ever use/wear/read/enjoy this thing again.

Most importantly, know that (notwithstanding legal/financial documents, for which there are rules and timelines for keeping/destroying), you can't make a wrong decision if you are being mindful about these questions. Our stuff has no feelings; our relationships with our past selves or our loved ones are not severed by letting go of possessions.

"Hardly anything needs to go to a dumpster" breaks my heart, because when I already mentioned something Mom asked me about that I didn't want, I said "that can go in your donation pile" and she said "Well. The donation pile is going to be the dumpster."

My adult life has revolved around things from thrift stores, secondhand stores, charity shops, whatever they're called: I've survived largely with secondhand clothes and homewares much of the time, and I've donated a lot too. Often I've just swapped things with friends rather than any stores being involved at all.

My mom has always resisted these things though, presumably because she associates them with poverty and thus bad people. She grew up on homemade clothes and so on, and doesn't have good connotations with stuff like that. Now she not only literally likes brand-name groceries and is sniffy about "off-brand" versions, but she takes that energy into every other aspect of her life too. Dumpster instead of thrift store is part of that energy I think.

She's told me "I don't know what to do with all this stuff" that "no one wants stuff" even about like her bowling ball and bag that are now "retro" if not "vintage" -- the ball is newer but the bag is very 70s, brown and striped, and I have always thought it's cute as hell -- when what she means is "I don't want this stuff." Which seems self-evident because otherwise she wouldn't be getting rid of it, but here her consistent but completely subconscious conviction that everyone is the same as her lets her down. I can absolutely picture her bowling bag in a thrift store and her ball one of those people can use when they have to rent bowling shoes at the very bowling alley where she was in a league for decades. These things are wanted!

But I've already lost that battle: a lot of usable furniture has already gotten broken up to be burned and anything that can't be burned -- from bowling balls to gym equipment that's made of perfectly good scrap metal if nothing else! -- is going in the dumpster.

Anyway, sorry, all that was just meant to be an aside. What I wanted to say was that it's interesting to read a professional's perspective on this, to be reminded that there are professionals (I used to know one on LJ! lost track of her since but I still think of her, shout-out to nodressrehersal) because this is work and it's hard and there are skills that make it easier.

I am chagrined that I can take almost none of this person's advice: I can't do it in small chunks (45 minutes a day! imagine that luxury!), I can't have a friend with me much less a professional. (I did warn mother_bones that there might be some video calls or some angsty texts from me, which she's very supportive of. I want to bring her and D with me so much for this trip! D to do practical stuff (like find the thrift stores and sneak stuff to them, and also sneak me hugs when my parents weren't looking), MB to sit with me and listen to me tell stories about objects. She did this when I moved in here: I was overwhelmed by where to put anything in this my first bedroom of my own I'd ever really had control over. She patiently listened to me tell stories about how I got this t-shirt from a friend when I was helping them move and all of that, which had to be done before I could put any of my clothes away.

She and I have had some great discussions around the themes I think will be relevant to me here, including the only-lightly-trodden path of how to deal with feminized things (like jewelry or nice dishes) which we've been through stages of rejecting because it's femininized, rejecting because we're not women (she's genderqueer) even though we're perceived that way, and finally appreciating because feminized things deserve more merit than they have gotten.

Like, Mom asked the other week if I want the necklaces and earrings that have gotten left there, and I absolutely do not (there's a reason most of them have been left there!), but now that I know they'd end up in a fucking dumpster if I said that, I'll shove them in my suitcase and bring them back here to properly sort through and donate. Anything small enough to rescue like that, I am rescuing.