It always starts with confidence.

Today is the day.

We're decluttering.

No mercy.

If nobody has worn it in six months, IT GOES.

You have bags.

You have boxes.

You may have even put on music.

This house is about to become the kind of house where people know where their scissors are.

Then you find the tiny shoes.

And the entire operation comes to a halt.

Suddenly You're Not Holding a Shirt

You're holding the shirt from the zoo.

The one they wore in that picture.

The one that somehow fit them for approximately eleven minutes before they grew again.

You remember their little arms inside it.

You remember their hair.

Their voice.

Who you were then.

And now you're sitting on the floor staring at children's clothing while the donation bag waits patiently for you to pull yourself together.

Objects Become Evidence

That's what makes some things so hard to let go.

It isn't really the onesie.

Or the shoes.

Or the blanket.

It's proof.

Proof that there was once a version of your family where those tiny shoes belonged by the door.

Proof that the kid currently raiding your refrigerator once fit inside that jacket.

Proof that you lived a chapter that's already over.

You Don't Have to Keep Everything

Please do not use this article as justification for keeping seventeen bins of stained toddler clothes.

I cannot be responsible for that.

But maybe there is a middle ground between keeping absolutely everything and convincing ourselves we're ridiculous for keeping anything.

Pick the shirt.

Keep the tiny shoes.

Save the blanket.

Take a picture of something before donating it.

Make one memory bin instead of twelve.

There are no medals awarded for emotionally efficient decluttering.

Then Let Some Things Go

Because somebody else might need those clothes.

Another little kid can run around in those shoes.

Another family can make memories in the jacket.

And getting rid of the object doesn't erase what happened while you had it.

The memory already belongs to you.