The objects of my affection
Confessions of a hoarder, on unpacking her emotional baggage
If you want a physical reminder of how much you or your life has changed, hire a storage unit, fill it with belongings from your life, then open it five years later.
I know because I just spent a morning this week clearing out the Emma Kriskinans time capsule I accidentally created back in December 2019.
When I pushed almost my entire Singapore existence into a 1000m x 500m metal box close to the Malaysia border I thought it would be a temporary measure. I had rented an apartment in Spain since September of the same year but wanted to give myself six months to see how I found it. I had plans to return to Singapore in April 2020, make a decision, and then clear the unit, out whatever that decision was.
We all had plans for 2020, didn’t we?
Faced with no clear or inexpensive plan to get the items out, I negotiated a long-term lease and bided my time. But looking back, I realise I was kidding myself.
I was always going to keep the unit, because I’ve always been a hoarder.
Unpacking the emotional baggage
When I say hoarder what may come to mind is those cable TV shows which delight in showing the homes of those who have struggled to contain their habit, usually due to life circumstances including periods of mental or physical ill-health. Newspapers piled high to the rafters, the sink overflowing with dishes from the past twenty years, every surface filled with not just ‘something’ but ‘multiple versions of that thing’, all natural light long snuffed out by stuff.
It’d be easy to say I’m not one of those kind of hoarders. And it’s true, I’m not. But I often wonder if the reason the word repulses me so viscerally is because I can understand all too well how those people got there.
Cupboards full of mugs. Piles of newspapers, because you once read an interesting article there. Papers you’re never going to file but which you can’t throw away. Electrical appliances that one day you can use the parts for, but you never will. Ten fancy-dress outfits that may come in handy another day (to be fair, my Oktoberfest dirndl has been worn more times than other regular items in my wardrobe). This was my household environment, and to some extent still is in my own place now.
The two certainties about hoarders are 1) their houses are bursting with stuff and 2) they all fall in love with minimalists.
I grew up around hoarders, all on my Dad’s side. I imagine it came from my Grandad coming to the UK as a refugee with nothing. Whoever it came from, my Dad took up the mantle: to this day he finds it unbearable to part with anything, even the cardboard boxes that housed appliances (‘just in case we need to take them back one day’).
Once a year when my parents cleared out the garage / attic / insert random overflowing room, the process would quickly become a battle, given the two certainties about hoarders are 1) their houses are bursting with stuff and 2) they all fall in love with minimalists.
Heated debates Blazing rows would rage under our roof as my Dad made an impassioned argument for why we needed this ten-year-old blender which no one ever used as my Mum ruthlessly tossed items. The matter would be settled and the blender thrown to the rubbish pile, only for my Dad to carefully retrieve and return it to its previous position in a corner cupboard no one ever opened. Yes my parents are still together, and yes, I’m as surprised as you. Exquisite restraint on my Mum’s part, another positive trait of hers I didn’t inherit.
The physiology of hoarding
I realise I’m probably protesting too much, but I think I have been better than my Dad in this regard. I am able to throw items away for a start (side note: I say throwing away for brevity, in reality we’ve always given anything usable to charity), but it feels hard, and that’s how I know this type of pathology runs deep in my physiology.
I value experiences and people over things, I’d happily give items away for free to anyone who wants them, and I am motivated by achievement and fulfilment over money, but I still feel physical pangs of pain when I clear out a room.
I can find the focus and energy to furiously work, write, and check off my goals in my life, but finding the mental strength to tackle a corner of disarray in my flat is often overwhelming to me. I’m not kidding when I say I struggle to throw away a pen that’s run out of ink. Not because I feel attached to the pen. It’s more like the mental load to throw the pen away overrides any decisiveness.
For those of you on the minimalist side, I’ll try to explain it. A normal thought process might be ‘The pen’s ran out of ink. Throw pen away’, and into the bin it goes. But in my brain, I can best explain mine as: ‘The pen’s ran out of ink. Oh that’s annoying. I’m going to have to think about throwing this pen away. But not today. I’ll revisit this tomorrow’. You see how the mental connection from A > Z is clouded by irrational obstacles that makes it mentally easier to keep the pen than physically pick it up and drop it in the bin next to you.
Moving countries every five years has helped me get better at overriding this discomfort, but it’s not cured me (yet). My loved ones can attest that I still have piles of ‘miscellaneous stuff’ form easily around my flat, little altars to my hoarding habit.
But when the thought of how much stuff I still have in this world has become suffocating, I know it’s a vice I need to confront. I’ll shortly be moving house, and clearing out my Singapore unit provided a useful test run to get ruthless. As it turned out, it was easier than I expected.
Cracking open the time capsule
I prepared for entering the storage unit Monday morning as if it were a crime scene: the victim being me and my wallet. The first object that greeted me was a half-drunk bottle of Japanese whiskey and I laughed wondering if I’d left that there as an offering to my future self. Needless to say, it remained untouched when I finished at noon, so it wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting.
I was struck first of all by the immediate sensory return I had on seeing the objects, even as they sat stacked and packed in transparent plastic boxes. In truth, the unit didn’t appear that much bigger than my Singapore bedroom, and in a flash, this was my life again.
I worked quickly and methodically through each box, surprised at what I found. Or rather, surprised at how little the objects spoke to me anymore. OK, duvets and bedcovers, kitchenware, and gym equipment: I still use all those things now, just different versions. Aside from that, I found a few books, notepads with ideas sketched out, and a couple of travel mementoes. But the majority of the boxes were filled with, well, tat. Items that I didn’t need, which I may get use from but no joy. They served a purpose, and I didn’t need them anymore.
I had one small suitcase, and there’s nothing like limited space to focus the mind. The only box which gave me pause for thought was packed with greetings cards. I pushed the box into the narrow corridor of corrugated iron and emptied it, convinced I could bin most of them. See, Mum - I can be a minimalist too!
But what I found transported me. I flipped through stacks of cards I’d received when I moved to Singapore, from friends, family, people I’d known all my life. Wishing me well on this next journey. Just like that I was 27 again, in the kitchen of my parents house, nervous but excited for this next adventure, surrounded by so much love.
I kept going and discovered postcards sent to me from friends in far out places too, or little gifts they’d sent me to thank me for hosting them. On my 30th birthday I’d had a table of vintage postcards I’d asked guests to write messages on. Flicking through them I felt the memories flood back, and tears filled my eyes. On the back of a vintage Milton Keynes postcard a family friend’s words read: ‘Where I met your Mum, and you as a baby. She held you in your arms. We love you’.
A rustle came from another unit around the corner and I remembered where I was. I weighed up what to do with the literal weight of these paper memories. And then I bundled them into my suitcase. Out of everything there, they were all I really needed.
Failure to discard
My suitcase was 9kg heavier when I checked it in for my return flight to Madrid. A box of paper cards, a stack of books, a stone I found in New Zealand. An Ai Wei Wei mug I’m particularly fond of.
9kg. The sum of my Singapore self.
As an attempt at ruthlessness, does this constitute a failure? For my opposites reading, I’m sure you’re cringing yes, Emma. And I know my partner will be shaking his head (I, too, fell in love with a minimalist).
For me though, it’s a huge step forward, and leaving that unit behind felt like a weight off my shoulders. I left the unit full, and locker padlocked, having made an arrangement with the nice lady that the staff could take anything they wanted in return for disposing of the rest. In two weeks time, when I move house, I’ll revisit whether or not I need to keep those cards… and possibly regret lugging them halfway across the world and then Spain home to Valencia.
But living in a time where we take thousands of photos a year and print none of them, these scraps of paper act as tangible reminders of the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done, and most importantly, the people I have loved and love me back. A little museum to my former self. A reminder that I existed, and mattered - for who, I don’t know. Maybe just for myself.
🐿 Are you a hoarder or a minimalist? Which objects do you hold dear, and why? What would a museum to your former self look like? Who would visit? Let me know via the comments.
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No mention of Lush products 😂