Decluttering My Fear

Photo by swabdesign on Unsplash

When life is calm for a while, I feel the urge to turn it into a project. I get carried away by some text about organisation, and the idea takes hold that I could finally get rid of all my excess and unnecessary weight. What I actually end up doing is forcing myself to throw things away, or worse, finding a “better” place for them. Because letting go feels too hard.

My justifications always sound rational. One would say mature, responsible. In my home, in my calendar, and in my mind, I don’t accumulate things or plans out of negligence. I do it out of a deep sense of responsibility toward the person I might become. I keep objects because “you never know,” I maintain relationships because invested effort should not be wasted, and I calculate every moment because time is a resource that shouldn’t be spent on something without a future.

And I still believe this is a virtue — the wisdom of someone who doesn’t waste time on trivial things. But beneath the “tidy house” and “organised shelves,” there is a quiet, relentless accountant at work. It doesn’t measure joy or beauty. It only measures investment and return. I have become a prisoner of the need for every second of my life to be a brick in the wall of some future safety.

The problem with this logic is that it sounds incredibly intelligent. My mind whispers: “If you keep all versions of yourself — the one who could build something from nothing, the one who could live alone, the one who might one day need that old coat — you will be safe.” And so life turns into an archive of all possible versions of me.

When I buy something, it has to pass a durability test. It’s not enough that I enjoy it now. When I store something, I don’t store it because I need it, but because I might not be able to justify not having saved it if I ever need it later. And when I refuse to throw something away, I am really refusing the possibility that I have stopped being the person who needs it. I try to manage something that cannot be controlled: who I will become over time. I think I am managing resources, but I am actually managing anxiety. My present is constantly being sacrificed for my future. I am not living this moment; I am saving it to buy the next one.

This mechanism didn’t come from ambition, but from survival. It is that old fear of scarcity and helplessness I carry from childhood. When you learn early that the world can collapse overnight, your mind builds a defence that never sleeps. For me, throwing away an old lamp or “wasting” time on a short trip doesn’t feel like freedom — it feels like voluntarily stepping toward an abyss. Every object and every plan becomes a shield against helplessness.

But here lies the greatest self-deception: I am preparing for an old crisis, not a future one. I think my archive of things and calculations protects me from helplessness, but in reality it is my adulthood that does. That toaster and three sets of spare bedding will not save me from illness or job loss. In a real crisis, what saves me is only my ability to adapt — exactly what I weaken while spending energy maintaining a museum of my fears.

This emotional over-protection costs me most in what is most real: relationships and feelings. If I feel attraction toward someone with whom I have no “future,” my system doesn’t register it as excitement, but as a dangerous distraction. What is the point of a smile, of an afternoon with someone who fascinates me, if all I will be left with is the sadness that it didn’t last?

I look at people who can do this. I look at them with a mix of confusion and quiet envy. I wonder what they have that I don’t. And I begin to understand: they have the courage to be vulnerable in the face of time. They don’t see sadness as a malfunction or a failed investment. They see it as a natural tax on beauty. They know it will hurt when it ends, but they don’t treat that pain as proof of failure — but as the price of entry into reality.

I, trying to protect myself from falling, stopped jumping. I protected myself from pain so well that I accidentally protected myself from life.

The hardest and most beautiful thing I can do is let something simply end. Without explanation. Without an archive of proof. It means acknowledging: I am not that helpless girl anymore. My power today does not lie in what I keep in my cupboard or how safely I have invested my feelings. My power lies in my breath, in my awareness, and in my freedom to move without weight.

The greatest luxury I can afford is not material abundance, but the right to emotional inefficiency. The right to do something without reason. The right to be hurt by something because it was beautiful, and brief.

An empty shelf and an empty afternoon are not proof of irresponsibility. They are monuments to my peace. Letting go of the unnecessary is not loss — it is the retirement of the part of me that was always on guard. I am stepping away from the role of investment banker of my own soul. My present self finally deserves to simply exist. Without justification. Without archives. Without calculation. Because a life constantly saved for later eventually becomes nothing more than an unused balance in the account of someone who, in protecting herself from sorrow, forgot how to live.