While you’re sorting out your items prior to a move, sooner or later you’ll get to items that have (strong) sentimental value for you. And that’s fine – most of the time, you’ll just take those items with you to the new home. Easy.
But what if those possessions of sentimental value happen to be so many that they have turned into sentimental clutter sometime down the road?
You still have to remember that you’re going to be paying to move all that stuff, especially when you’re moving across the country. On top of that, you may lack the space to store all those sentimental items in the new home – particularly relevant when you’re downsizing your home.
Parting with sentimental items is never easy. In fact, it can be one of the hardest things you’ll have to do during your move. And considering that moving is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, you can imagine just how difficult it can be to let of sentimental items when moving to a new home.
How to let go of sentimental items when moving?
Here are tips that should help you get rid of the sentimental clutter.
See if your sentimental items are worth keeping
The first step of letting go of sentimental items is to evaluate each item and determine what’s really worth keeping and what’s not.
Ask yourself this: WHY exactly are those items sentimental for you? Most of the time, it won’t be the object itself, it’ll be the association of the object with a specific person, a particular place, or a concrete period in the past.
The following questions can help you better understand your emotional attachment to things such as gifts, souvenirs, and inherited items:
- Why am I keeping this item?
- Will a photo of this item be enough to keep the memory?
- Can somebody else get more use of this item than me?
- Do I really want to keep this item for many years to come?
See also: What to keep when moving
Get rid of the guilt
Sometimes people keep things not out of love but rather out of guilt.
It’s the feeling of guilt that by getting rid of an item that reminds you of someone dear to you, you will somehow sever the special connection with that very person. After all, sentimentality often comes from happy memories.
It’s important to understand that keeping items out of guilt will not help you come to terms with your emotions. Ultimately, you can still keep the happy memories without having to hold onto physical items to remind you of them.
It’s time to let go of such items. Don’t forget that sentimental clutter can hurt you in the end, either by adding extra stress to your life or by keeping you from moving forward.
However, if you do love an object of sentimental value, then that object is not clutter.
Resolve the dilemma of gifts
Sentimental items that you like, need, and use are no-brainers – those priceless things are coming with you, period. The real issue is what to do with sentimental items that you don’t like, don’t need, and don’t use. Like some gifts, for example.
It must have happened to you too – you get a gift that you don’t really like (to put it mildly) and you know right away that you won’t ever use it. Nevertheless, you keep holding onto it since it’s a gift from a family member or a special person in your life.
Sometimes gifts can easily become a burden, especially when you’re moving to another home, because you may have to resolve the well-known dilemma of gifts first.
Most people tend to hold on to gifts because they think that givers will actually expect to see those presents used, worn, or displayed depending on the specific item. That, however, is not always the case, meaning that givers might not have such expectations at all. But in case they do, those expectations cannot be fully justified.
Ultimately, those gifts are yours and you should be able to do with them as you please. Oftentimes, that’s easier said than done, of course.
Read also: Declutter or storage – which one should you choose when you move?
Create a digital memory of sentimental stuff
While you’re sorting through old photos and various old documents – the perfect example of sentimental items, think about the idea of creating digital copies of them instead of continuing to store a few boxes of paper copies in the garage. This way, you will save plenty of physical storage space in the new home and you won’t have to worry about those items getting damaged with time.
Another great example of sentimental items that you’ll be better off digitizing prior to moving out is your children’s drawings from when they were little kids. It’s awesome to be able to keep those priceless drawings forever, but that also means moving two extra-large boxes of children’s art that you just don’t have enough space to store in the new place.
What you can do is keep a few outstanding paper drawings and scan and save the other ones digitally. Sadly, sometimes circumstances force you to part with sentimental items, but keeping a digital memory of those objects will make it alright again.
Must-read: Moving timeline: Interactive week-by-week moving checklist
Pass on heirlooms, if possible
If you’ve received any family heirlooms (jewelry, timepieces, furniture, books, quilts, vintage clothing, musical instruments, weapons, kitchenware, art, etc.) but you never really liked them in the first place, then you shouldn’t feel obliged to keep those sentimental items.
In fact, moving such unwanted family heirlooms to a new house will only make it worse since you’ll be first paying up for their transportation, and then you’ll need to find sufficient storage space for them.
Remember the old saying: one man’s clutter is another man’s treasure.
So, don’t burden yourself with heirlooms you don’t want and certainly don’t wish to take with you when moving to a new home. Instead, ask if someone else in the family – a sibling or a relative – would like to have them. And if they do, then it’s a win-win situation for you: you’ll have made a family member happy and will have let go of sentimental items you never cared about.
Bear in mind that a local history museum might be interested in an heirloom of yours provided that it’s really old and well-preserved – a very old typewriter, for example.
Good to know: Where to donate stuff when moving
Keep just one of a bunch of sentimental items
Another way to let go of sentimental items when moving is the tactical move of keeping only one item from a set or a collection of things that have strong sentimental value for you. This way, you’ll be able to save the sentimental attachment of the lot but you’ll only be moving one item to reduce moving costs and save storage space in the new house.
Let’s say you’re thinking of moving the entire collection of stuffed animals that belonged to your now grown-up child. Now, every plush animal has its own fascinating story that will keep reminding you of a specific moment of time when your kid was growing up.
Without a doubt, every single toy animal is special and you’d hate to part with any of them. However, keeping 20+ stuffed animals for years and years is not practical and will become a burden sooner than you think.
So, the best thing you can do in such cases is to keep one or maybe two plush animals (the absolute favorites) and give away the rest, either to charity or to friends’ kids to enjoy.
Find a better home for sentimental clutter
Bear in mind that an elegant solution to the issue of how to let go of sentimental items when you move is to find a better home for the things that you can’t take with you for some reason or another.
Sentimental clutter can become a real problem as years pass by, especially when you happen to attach fairly easily to material stuff and then find it almost impossible to let go of those things when circumstances require you to.
Sometimes it can be a real struggle to decide what to do: you don’t want to part with sentimental items but you just don’t have the space to store them in the place where you’re moving. So, what should you do?
Don’t forget that you always have the option to give away or donate sentimental items to people who need them and will appreciate them. See if a family member or a friend is interested in any of the things you find so difficult to part with. This way, you’ll know that your valuable stuff will continue to be treasured, thus making it a bit easier to let go of sentimental items when moving to a new house.
See also: How to declutter your home before moving
