I Thought I Had a Clutter Problem. I Actually Had an Attachment Problem.

On letting go of the fantasy versions of yourself and the stuff they left behind

When my son was born premature, everything stopped. Not just the daily routines and the plans. Everything I thought my life was supposed to look like. Lying in that hospital, I looked at my life and saw someone I didn’t fully recognize. Someone who had been performing a version of herself for so long, that she was stuck in survival and had forgotten who she actually was and what actually mattered.

When I came home, I started decluttering. Not because I wanted a perfect home. But because I wanted to be a present mom. I had been distracting myself with meaningless stuff for years, I was so overwhelmed and I was desperate for clarity. And what I found inside my own home completely undid me. I had accumulated so much stuff because I thought more stuff would fix my life, would fix me. But yet I had been at my absolute lowest the entire time. The stuff was never filling anything. It was just covering it.

The fantasy versions of me

Here’s what I found when I started going through it all.

The self help books

Shelf after shelf of them. Books I bought because I genuinely believed I needed to be fixed. That if I just read enough, absorbed enough, optimized enough… I’d finally become the version of me that was acceptable. I never finished most of them. Because the problem was never that I didn’t know enough. The problem was that I didn’t believe I was enough.

The workout gear

Equipment for workouts I hated, for a body I was punishing myself into. I wasn’t pursuing fitness. I was pursuing a different body because I’d decided mine was wrong. Every piece of equipment that I didn’t actually enjoy using, was a reminder of a war I was fighting against myself.

The clothes that were too tight

I kept them on purpose. The logic was that they would motivate me to stay small. But what they actually did was greet me every single morning with the message that I wasn’t quite right yet. I was using my own wardrobe as a punishment system and calling it discipline.

The art supplies

This one took me the longest to let go of. I used to be an artist. It was the thing I was told I was good at and so my identity had wrapped itself around it so completely that letting go of the supplies felt like letting go of the only version of myself anyone had ever praised. Even though I had completely fallen out of love with it. I kept it all because I didn’t know who I was without it.

The decor that wasn’t mine

My home looked a certain way because I thought it should. Pinterest inspired, curated based on what was trending, a life that photographed beautifully. But I’m a mom who loves being outside. Who loves mid century. Who wants low maintenance and real life. My home looked like someone else lived there because in a way, someone else did, the person I thought I was supposed to be.

The heels

I am not a heel person. I have never been a heel person. But I kept them for the life I thought I was going to have and needed to have. The one that got that dressed up, that formal, that polished. That life never came because it was never actually mine.

What letting go actually felt like

I expected guilt. I expected grief. What I felt was lightness. And something I wasn’t prepared for, permission. Like I was finally being told it was okay to put down something that was never mine to carry. Every item I let go of was a version of myself I’d been dragging along without realizing it. A should. An expectation. A fantasy.
The stuff wasn’t the problem. The attachment to who I thought I needed to become, that was the problem. The stuff was just where those identities lived. When I started removing it, I started coming home to myself for the first time in a long time.

What this has to do with your home

Your home holds evidence of who you thought you’d be. The kitchen equipment for the person who was going to cook elaborate meals. The craft supplies for the creative version of you. The books for the more disciplined, more optimized, more together version of you. The clothes for the smaller you, the dressier you, the someone else you.
None of that is clutter in the traditional sense. It’s grief and fear, stored in objects. And no basket, no label maker, no organization system will fix it. Because this isn’t a systems problem. It’s an attachment problem.

Here’s your permission, in writing (not that you need it)

You are allowed to let go of who you thought you should be. You are allowed to keep only what belongs to the life you are actually living, not the one you thought you needed to live.

Before you go, walk through your home and ask yourself this

Pick up the things that feel heavy or complicated and ask…

-Does this belong to the life I’m living or the life I thought I should have?

-If I didn’t already own this, would I bring it into my home today?

-Does this belong to me or to a version of me I’ve been trying to become?

And the most important question of all…

-Am I keeping this because it serves me or because letting go of it feels like admitting something I’ve been too fearful to say?

If you paused on that last one, you have your answer. And that pause is not failure. That pause is the first step back to yourself.

Your home should feel like you not them

Not a mood board. Not a should. Not a fantasy version of a life that was never really yours. Just you. Exactly as you are right now. And that is more than enough to build something beautiful.

If you walked through your home and felt more seen by this article than by your own space, that’s usually the first sign something needs to change. I work with women to edit their homes so they finally feel like themselves inside them. Virtual sessions available everywhere, in person if you’re local. Ready for your own home edit? Email me bymicaelalynn@gmail.com

Talk soon,

Micaela