Kathi (00:01.484)

Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter-Free Academy, where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And today I wanna introduce you to an old friend of mine, but a new friend to the Clutter-Free side of podcasting. It’s Kathleen Kerr. Kathleen, welcome to the podcast.

Kathleen (00:20.924)

Thanks so much for having me today, Kathi.

Kathi (00:22.764)

Well, thank you for being here. Now, if people know you and me, they’d say you’re on the wrong podcast girl. Because as we also know, I have the writing at the Red House podcast where we talk all things writing. And Kathleen, in addition to being my agent, was my editor for years and years and years. And so we have had many a book conversation, many a writing conversation, many a marketing conversation. But

Kathleen (00:30.606)

You

Kathi (00:51.166)

You recently took a trip out east where you and I are both on the West Coast, all in the name of decluttering. And so this is your aunt who had passed away, correct? And your great aunt. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the situation. Why you?

Kathleen (01:06.248)

This is my great aunt. Yes.

Kathi (01:17.746)

What did you know you were getting into and what were you surprised that you were getting into?

Kathleen (01:23.336)

Cool, Glory. So this is my great aunt. And she had inherited a house from her parents. And nothing that came into that house since that family got the land in the 30s ever left the house. So my great aunt passed away. Her intention had been to leave it to my mother. My mother had passed away before her, so it went to my father instead.

When she passed away, we knew that we were going to have to clean out the house. And we had been there many times. I grew up every summer spending a few weeks on that property, spending a few weeks with her. And it was a dear, dear part of my childhood, very formative for me. This is land that my grandmother had grown up on, that my great-grandmother had lived and died on. It’s a really very, I mean, it’s sacred ground for me, for my family.

Kathi (02:20.046)

You’re right.

Kathleen (02:22.37)

And we knew that the house was bad. We could see the clutter growing over the years, but there were doors that always remained closed. When she died in May, I went into the house after her funeral and opened some of those doors and was swiftly overcome by a biological need to put on a mask and get out of there because I realized just how bad it was.

Kathi (02:33.25)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (02:48.398)

you

Kathleen (02:51.304)

at that point. Well, I think I realized about 75 % of how bad it was. So this past summer, I took my daughters out east, we went back to Maine, and I joined my father and a brother and his wife, some aunts and uncles, some cousins, just a whole crew of people that were all going to go through the house together. And we were beyond overwhelmed, all of us knowing how bad it was.

Kathi (02:57.282)

Hmm.

Kathleen (03:19.036)

We were overwhelmed by truly how unspeakable it was and really, truly overcome by grief again, grief that she had lived like that for so long, that she had not allowed any beauty into her life, that her private spaces were so full of junk. It felt self-punishing to me. It was truly hard to see it.

Kathi (03:28.622)

night.

Kathi (03:42.414)

Hmm.

Kathleen (03:46.012)

But our task in that week was just to go through enough of the clutter that we could be confident that we had everything that we could possibly save that we would want, family history, postcards, that we had everything so that we could just hire junk removal. It took a lot of dumpsters to get to that point.

Kathi (04:06.122)

Wow. Wow. it feels so completely overwhelming. And like you said, it feels sad that, you know, I’ve got some people in my life and, that want to make changes right before they sell the house. And I’m like, but I want you to be comfortable now. I want you to have, you know,

be surrounded by things that make you happy now. And I think that, you know, it’s so hard to help people see that that’s a possibility. How do you think your aunt got to that place? I know you’re not a psychologist, I know, but I’m just wondering, do you know how it got to be like that?

Kathleen (05:00.698)

It was little bit over a little bit over time and she kept closing off more doors. She couldn’t, and I do think this is generational as well because it wasn’t just once her parents died and she had the run of the house, the problem started. The problem had started before that. And certainly there’s some of the depression mentality that I’m sure you’ve talked about in this space, but it was far beyond that. was every piece of paper, every envelope, nothing, nothing.

Kathi (05:05.836)

Yeah.

Kathi (05:16.726)

Right. Yeah.

Kathi (05:22.124)

Yes, we have.

Kathleen (05:30.46)

was thrown out. had, you we found, I’m sure people have, these stories won’t surprise you, but we found, you know, those little cups of applesauce that you can get the little plastic containers. We found stacks of those cups that were in the pantry. Alongside really beautiful heirlooms, this place used to be a dairy farm and I found glass pint jars that were stamped with, you know, one pint in the name of the farm, the family name. That’s a treasure to me at that

Kathi (05:30.648)

Mm.

Kathi (05:36.878)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kathi (05:58.102)

Right, of course.

Kathleen (05:59.964)

But it got to the point that we realized she hadn’t taken care of anything for so long that I couldn’t start. There was so little I could take. And even as I was throwing things away, I’m throwing away dumpsters full of items, much of which I think is would have value to someone, would have monetary value, has intrinsic value. And I’m tossing it all because I couldn’t start caring.

Kathi (06:21.185)

Right?

Kathleen (06:28.646)

when she hadn’t taken care of it for six decades.

Kathi (06:30.924)

Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that there is this idea that I can’t do it, so I’ll leave it for the next generation. And but I’m also going to judge how you take care of it or how you dispose of it or how you give it away. And we have to break those expectations because, you know, yes, there may have been.

depression, may have been other psychological factors going in, but I cannot care more than you did. I just can’t. And so we have to be able to say, you know, these things were not this person. And yes, it’s great if we can keep a few things that bring back beautiful memories of that person, but we can’t be responsible for categorizing a person’s entire life in those situations.

So I wanna get really practical here, Kathleen. You know what, actually, I wanna take a quick break. We’re gonna go pay some bills. And when we come back, I wanna get to the practical side of how you and your family approach this overwhelming task and how you were able to break it down. So we’re gonna go do that and we’ll be back in just a moment.

Hey there, we’re back here on Clutterfree Academy with Kathleen Kerr, my agent, but also the survivor.

of somebody who has had to deal with a hoarder’s house. I mean, that’s really where we are right now. So Kathleen, let’s get, because many of us are gonna have to face this. If it’s not our parents, it may be a sibling, it may be a child, it might be a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, but many of us, as we start to lose family members are going to be the, or the family member has to transition into assisted living or something like that.

We are going to be the ones who have to make sense of all of this. And so can you give me, you said you felt overwhelmed. You felt like, you know, that this was just too big of a task. So tell us how you even started to approach it and how did your plan change as you got into it.

Kathleen (08:51.88)

Oof. So yeah, the organization, just the brainstorming, how can we manage all of this? And I don’t have the luxury, my whole family doesn’t have the luxury of this is just across town or this is an hour drive away. This is a seven-hour plane ride for me to get to this space. and the closest other relatives who are involved in all of this are a 12-hour drive away. So this is not.

Kathi (09:08.696)

Yeah.

Kathleen (09:17.828)

A simple, can do this over a year on the odd weekend. Someone can just run over. This was, we have a finite period of time. We are all here for a week. We need to get done what we can get done in a week. So this was the first get-in and do-the-triage kind of time. So we went in and we split up into teams. We called them Team One and Team A.

Kathi (09:26.478)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (09:41.802)

Hahaha!

Kathleen (09:43.376)

of splitting up teams into Team One and team A may tell you something about the competitive nature of my family. But that kind of devolved into, we sort of split up into just groups of two. And it was, let’s pick a room and let’s get these rooms in some kind of order. Let’s go through, let’s just get this one room first of all. Let’s get this clean so that this is someplace that we can have.

Kathi (09:49.109)

Absolutely.

Kathleen (10:09.222)

We can set things up. can not really stage things, but we can set up a few things for someone from an estate sale to come in just to make some evaluations. We stationed the younger, stronger guys by the dumpster so they could be tossing things in. There were people who were like, OK, I’m really eager to see what’s up in that front attic. And that was a place of horror, let me tell you. That’s where we found all the Nazi memorabilia. And that was.

Kathi (10:37.577)

lean.

Kathleen (10:38.524)

We’re assuming that this was a war trophy from a great uncle of some kind, but there was a lot of Nazi stuff in there. Anyway, well, we had some bingo parts about who’s gonna find the most racist thing that used to be considered charmingly folksy.

Kathi (10:47.854)

Kathi (10:54.742)

Kathleen my grandfather, was part of The Hitler Youth so we all have those relatives, right? We all have those Yeah

Kathleen (11:03.176)

We all have the relatives. I’ve got them too. My maiden name is Schmidt. You can tell that we, yep, Yep, yep. So yeah, we split up and it was actually, I’m just gonna say, one of the better times I’ve ever spent with my extended family. It was so hard, but it was so good to have a project to work on with these people. Because frequently, I mean, for the last, what, 15 years,

Kathi (11:08.066)

Yeah, Von Campen, I get it.

Kathi (11:27.064)

Yeah.

Kathleen (11:30.544)

My aunts and uncles and cousins, I live on the opposite coast from them. They’re in a different country, actually. So I see them at weddings and funerals quickly, briefly catching up. But to have an actual project to work on, and it’s not just, hey, how’s it going, but how are we going to solve this problem together was a great bonding experience. So yeah.

Kathi (11:39.553)

Yeah.

Kathi (11:52.28)

Kathleen, let me ask, how did you handle it when you disagreed about how to handle something?

Kathleen (11:58.708)

good grief. We had those moments. I am, and a lot of my other family members are extremely practical about this stuff. I knew it was going to be a problem walking into, you know, going into the space. There was going to be so much that I saw that would look like a treasure. And I knew I wouldn’t have time to curate. And my whole methodology as I was going in was touch it once, make a decision about it, touch it once. And then it’s going in the bag to the dumpster.

Kathi (12:24.332)

Yeah.

Kathleen (12:27.746)

or it’s going in, my daughter was there, my nine-year-old daughter was there, so she had a pile of treasures that she was making. So it goes in her treasure pile or it goes to the dumpster. Those are the only two options. There were other family members there who had a very different approach. And for them, it was touch it and hold it and think about it and think about the person and think about the history and then be overwhelmed by love for that history and not be able to put it in any of the piles.

Kathi (12:56.429)

Right.

Kathleen (12:57.18)

And there were some big disagreements. And there were times that we would just defer to each other. If you care about it that much, it’s gonna go to your home. You can have that. We did find there were a few items. I mean, this was sweet. There’s my great -grandparents marriage certificate was framed and hung up above their marriage bed. I thought it was lovely. And I was like, I kinda like to have that. And my dad too was like, I’ve always wanted to have that.

Kathi (13:18.958)

Awwww.

Kathleen (13:25.978)

And ultimately my aunt mentioned as well, I really kind of love to have that. And, or she didn’t even say it that boldly. I think it was just, I always remember looking at that and thinking how nice it was. And she was the one who actually remembered both of those great-grandparents. So it went to her. So I think we were all in the end really good about just being deferential about those things. was so much that everyone could get something.

Kathi (13:40.942)

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Right. you know, I think about it, there are, you if you think about a bullseye, you know, there are people who are closer to that center of the bullseye who have had those life experiences with the great grandparents with, and yeah, it makes sense that, you know, the people who are closest to the center get a little bit more weight in some of those decisions as long as they’re willing to follow that up.

You know, it’s not like, this is really important, Kathleen, you need to take it home. None of that can be allowed. But if it’s really important, they can take it home or they can say, no, we don’t need that. So I love that you deferred to certain people in there. And you know, my brother has already told my mom, yeah, I’m just backing up a U-Haul and taking everything straight to the dump.

And my mom says, and that’s why you don’t have keys to my house. And so.

Kathi (14:55.138)

But, yeah.

Kathleen (14:55.208)

And, you know, it’s acknowledging everyone grieves in different ways. And for me, the space I’ve gotten to, having lost many other relatives, no object, no finite object was worth the relationship. It is not worth continued bitterness. It’s not worth someone seeing that I’m wearing a ring 10 years later and thinking, that should have been mine. No object is worth that. If I really want a ring, I can go buy a ring.

Kathi (14:59.213)

Yes.

Kathi (15:08.888)

Right? Yes.

Kathleen (15:25.126)

Right? And that’s where I come from. Having grown up seeing this house, that’s the context I come from. I’ve chosen to live a very different way. And everyone is grappling with their own grief in different ways. And cleaning out this house for all of us was a deeply emotional experience. You know, if we’re talking just practically, one of the very practical things that I ended up needing to do was create some space.

Kathi (15:34.371)

Right.

Kathi (15:45.335)

you

Kathleen (15:55.096)

you know, when I was getting into my great aunt’s bedroom in particular, that was the worst. That was the space where there was the least beauty, where she had just piled up. There were load-bearing bags of trash. And I’m not exaggerating there load-bearing trash. she had chucked every shoe she’d ever owned just in a corner. There were Christmas gifts that she had been given that were just chucked in a corner. Every purse just chucked over there. Every article of clothing, every jar of deodorant was everything.

Kathi (16:24.182)

Wow.

Kathleen (16:25.154)

Everything was there. And it was so hard to see the way that she had lived. Someone I loved so desperately. And to see the extent of that illness. That was one of those doors that was always closed. And I could be in there for a bit. And then I needed to leave. And I needed to give myself time to walk around the fields that are there. It’s a beautiful piece of farmland. And I needed to go remind myself what was beautiful and get a little bit of distance from all of that.

Kathi (16:37.336)

Yeah.

Kathi (16:53.622)

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, there was probably some mental illness. There was definitely some, some, you know, some issues that she had. I, I have a lot of people who are listening right now, who probably are not in that extreme of a circumstance, but are embarrassed. And they don’t want their family to come over because they don’t want them to see it.

Kathi (17:26.36)

two questions for you. How do you feel about your aunt after seeing that? your feelings towards her change? Did your affection for her change? And I know we should obviously say no, of course not, because that’s the good and right thing for people to say. But I think people need to hear, were you able to stay in a place of compassion?

If there was one thing that your aunt could have done differently, one small thing, whether it was saying, hey, this thing is important, pay attention to it, or I don’t know. What do you wish your aunt knew?

Kathleen (18:00.551)

Yeah.

Kathleen (18:17.64)

I am able to get back to a place of compassion now. There were times when there was real anger when I was going through her room when I was going through her pantry, and there’s a whole barn that’s attached to the space as well that’s just full. There was anger. There was confusion. There was gratitude to God for not letting the whole place go up. There was…

Kathi (18:39.118)

Yeah.

Kathleen (18:46.108)

We found every printer she’d ever owned, every computer, and everything was still plugged into everything else. And I’m like, how did this place not go up? But there really was, there had been a sense of this property is such a gift, you know, that’s coming to my family. And it was not a gift. Going through all of that, that was not a gift. That was hard work. That was sacrifice. And I love her so much. I still love her. And

Kathi (19:01.71)

Hmm.

Kathi (19:12.972)

Yeah.

Kathleen (19:16.232)

I wanted my children to be able to go there and experience it and see what I had loved about that property. And instead I actually needed to send them away. They were there for about an hour and it was like, they shouldn’t be here. This isn’t good for them to see psychologically, biologically, this isn’t good for them. So they were out with my sister-in-law for a large part of this. It was such an overwhelming sense of, why didn’t you let me help? Did you not trust me with this?

Kathi (19:33.09)

Yeah.

Kathi (19:45.89)

Yeah.

Kathleen (19:45.916)

Did you think I would have loved you less if you had let me help with this? And I understand there was probably never a tipping point when there was never any impetus for her to say, I need the help here. But I wish she had. It was this, the last act of love that I could give her was taking that embarrassment for her.

Kathi (20:00.301)

Yeah.

Kathi (20:06.721)

Right. Right.

Kathleen (20:08.506)

I wish I could have done that for her. wish more than I can express that I could have said, okay, please just go away. I’m going to send you on a two-week vacation somewhere. Everyone who loves you, we’re going to help you out with this. Let us help. And sure, it would have been embarrassing. It’s always embarrassing to say I need help. But she just festered away in this house that was rotting around her.

Kathi (20:26.72)

Yes. Right.

Kathleen (20:35.688)

not caring for any of it, so now I can’t care for any of it. Now everything becomes trash. I was seeing things that were absolute treasures. I found a tin of three-by-five cards, and she had been a teacher for 30 some years. And on these three-by-five cards were nursery rhymes that she had written out. And they were all divided into, this is good for cleanup time, or these are fun songs to sing in the classroom while we’re waiting for lunch.

And I wanted to keep every one of them, but unfortunately I found that tin underneath a used adult diaper that had just been discarded. So I couldn’t keep any of it. So yeah, there was anger, there was compassion. It was all mixed together. And when it got to be too much, then I went for a walk.

Kathi (21:11.459)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:15.266)

Yeah.

Kathi (21:18.838)

Yeah. Yeah.

I think what I take away from this is to ask for the help sooner rather than later. And right now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, right now is the sooner because it’s not going to get better on its own. It’s just not. And most of us have people in our lives who love us, who don’t want to see us living in squalor.

Kathleen (21:32.075)

yes.

Kathi (21:53.304)

who don’t, and here’s the thing, know, clutter is not a big issue for me anymore, but I have that tendency and all it takes is a hurt ankle or a change in circumstances. know, this has nothing to do with what you’ve been talking about with your aunt, but like three things at our house have died all at once, right?

Kathleen (22:07.574)

Yeah.

Kathi (22:22.804)

a light in our garage, our microwave, like everything. And so our lives are totally disjointed at this moment. You wouldn’t think that that would be enough to kind of throw things into a tailspin, but it really is. You know, when you’ve got the contents for your garage out on your driveway, it, it, and it just takes a few of those things to just feel like you’re not going to catch your breath again.

Kathleen (22:34.551)

You

Kathi (22:50.97)

and to say this is when I need the help before those dominoes completely fall. Kathleen, have you taken away anything from this about how you, I know you’re not a cluttery person. I’ve known you long enough to know that, but have you taken anything away from this where you’re like, this is something in my life I’m going to do differently because of this experience I’ve had in my great aunt’s home?

Kathleen (22:59.249)

Absolutely.

Kathleen (23:19.004)

Yes, I have a few items that I kept that are really, really special from in my direct line. I am the oldest woman in my family and I have a piece of kitchen equipment from all these other women. So those are in my China cabinet. Those were up in my China cabinet. So I would see them all the time. And okay, this is going to make me sound like I don’t like I don’t care about the family too much or I don’t care about this group, but.

Kathi (23:31.566)

Got it.

Kathi (23:47.178)

No, no.

Kathleen (23:48.974)

I realized I don’t want to be confronted with that memory and that grief every time I walk into my dining room. I don’t need to see that every time. So I have decided now that those go into my Christmas box. Those are things that I bring out in December. And once a year I can, this is also what I do with my, the family jewelry that I have. It’s not something I wear. You know, I don’t wear a lot of jewelry and,

Kathi (23:57.614)

Hmm.

Kathi (24:01.005)

Yeah.

Kathi (24:07.766)

Yes.

Kathi (24:17.219)

Right.

Kathleen (24:18.896)

just not really me, but I have all of this family jewelry. So I always put it on my Christmas tree to add a little bit of sparkle and bling. And these kitchen items that I have can, those can be part of a holiday centerpiece. I can bring those out. That’s a fun thing to look at, but I don’t need it all the time. My house doesn’t need to absorb someone else’s house.

Kathi (24:24.194)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (24:31.959)

Right.

Kathi (24:40.278)

Yes, it’s so true. You know, it’s so interesting. My best example of this is Susie Flory, who you know, gave me these handmade Native American dolls that I just love. I love them. I love them. But there’s not really like a place for them. So I put them with my fall decor. You know, like I have a little one box for each season. And every time I pull those out, they make me so happy.

But oftentimes when you have things out 24 seven 365, they just become part of the background noise. And when I pull those out, I think, gosh, I love Susie. I’m so grateful for her friendship. And she got me these specifically because they’re from a native American tribe in the area that she and I both live in. And so they’re really, you know, they have a story behind them and they’re meaningful to me. And

Kathleen (25:31.452)

Hmm.

Kathi (25:37.408)

I think about them every year instead of never. And I love that you’re saying there’s going to be a day each year where I pull those out. I think about the women in my family. you know, and knowing you, I thank God for their legacy and what they’ve sewn into me and your daughters and your sister. It’s, beautiful. It’s absolutely beautiful.

I think we have been tricked into thinking that if we love somebody, we keep their stuff around for the rest of our lives. you know, those dishes may be important to one of your girls when they get older, and they may not be. And both of those answers are okay. Both of those answers are okay because, you know, my daughters are not stuffed people.

Kathleen (26:14.119)

Yes.

Kathleen (26:27.996)

Right.

Kathi (26:34.466)

They don’t want all those things. My sons are definitely not stuffed people. And I’m okay with that. And so for our hearts to be settled to say we don’t need to keep all those things, and yet it doesn’t diminish our love for that person is bucking against society, but it is so true. It is so true.

Kathleen (26:58.428)

Yes.

Kathi (27:00.558)

Can I ask you, what’s the plan for the house now? Are you guys selling it to somebody local? Like, what’s the hope?

Kathleen (27:06.728)

It’s very much in my dad’s hands. So that is kind of a to be determined. The one thing that is certain is that the house needs to be demolished. Because again, she didn’t take care of it. She wasn’t capable of taking care of it. was too much house, was too much property. She had never been trained to. She grew up in a time when the men are doing the hard work and the light bulb goes out in the barn and she’s not gonna get on the ladder to fix it.

Kathi (27:13.464)

Yeah.

Kathi (27:18.956)

Yeah.

Yeah, right, right, absolutely.

Kathi (27:27.555)

Bye.

Kathi (27:34.423)

Yeah.

Kathleen (27:35.314)

You know, especially in the later years, she didn’t know what to do about the mold that was taking over. All of those things. So the house now is, I mean, it was never in fabulous shape, but now it’s the rats and the mice. And I think I told you that the mouse traps had been put out, but then the rats moved in and they stole the mouse traps, which I believe means that the mice have been enslaved by the rats. You could hear them.

Kathi (27:40.13)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (27:47.361)

Right.

Kathi (27:51.895)

Yeah.

Kathleen (28:05.38)

everywhere. It’s the house needs to be demolished. So there’s I see so much in there. And there’s so much history that I can’t there’s there’s a grinding stone. It’s massive. It’s beautiful. It looks like a museum piece. It would be so cool to have I look at that. These old farm tools that my great grandfather and his sons all used. I would love to have them.

Kathi (28:05.637)

my god.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (28:20.547)

Yeah.

Kathi (28:26.978)

Yeah.

Kathi (28:34.68)

Yeah. Right. Right.

Kathleen (28:34.834)

there’s no place in my house for this. What would I do with that? The one piece, the one piece I really want. I think, I don’t know if I showed you a photo of this. I can text you a photo of this for your show notes is that the indoor plumbing was installed in the sixties. And before then there’s a three-holer that’s out in the back that everyone would just use. There’s one hole that’s a little bit smaller. I think that’s for the baby butts and they’re the normal adult size. So, you know,

Kathi (28:47.277)

Yes, please.

Kathi (28:52.152)

Mm -hmm.

Kathi (28:56.331)

No!

Kathi (29:00.77)

Yes. Right. I love the board. Yes.

Kathleen (29:04.764)

And I really want, I want that board. I want the board with the three holes in them. I want to hang that up in my bathroom. I want that so bad, Kathi. So that’s the one piece before the house is demolished that I would like to hold onto. But other than that, it’s all going. And that would have made my great aunt so sad. And she was thinking this could be donated to a historical society. We talked to a variety of historical societies and about all the great farm tools that were authentic and vintage. And they said,

Kathi (29:19.533)

Yeah.

Kathleen (29:34.866)

There are a lot of old farms. We have all of this. We’re good. Thank you so much. And to know that so much of this that she was so, that she put so much weight and identity on ended up in a dumpster in the rain. And it was all going to be ground up and then put in a landfill, all of it.

Kathi (29:37.346)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (29:50.796)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathi (29:57.27)

I think to me the big lesson for this is ask for help sooner rather than later. And you know, it really is to know what you have. Because here on the West Coast, something that is that old is very rare. But on the East Coast, not so much. And so to know that is really, really interesting. And I know that

Kathleen (30:03.048)

Yes.

Kathleen (30:15.868)

Yes.

Kathi (30:27.018)

your husband’s job. Explain just really briefly what he does.

Kathleen (30:32.272)

Right, my husband is a historian, an architectural historian. So he works specifically with the national parks to do cultural resource surveys. But he is trained in fixing houses like this, period houses with the period tools and all the architecture of that.

Kathi (30:51.778)

Yeah, I was just gonna say anything you wanna bring home, he’d probably be okay with. Yeah, exactly. And he would know what to do with it, but he’s like the one person in my circle of people who would actually know what to do with it. The rest of us would be, we’d hang it on the wall and be done with it. But to ask for help, to ask for input, to ask for, is this actually worth something? Or is there somebody who would actually like this?

Kathleen (30:56.32)

he’d love it.

Kathleen (31:11.077)

Exactly.

Kathi (31:20.972)

Because I know your aunt didn’t want to leave you with a burden, but because she didn’t ask for help, she had no choice.

Kathleen (31:27.27)

No.

Mm.

Nor could she, I’m convinced, really process how much of a burden it would be. I don’t think she really knew how much of that, just how much she had. And if I could go back and tell her anything and show her anything, and I’m not sure how this would have been received or could have been received, it was so hard to do that work. was logistically, it is hard for me to get across the continent. Logistically, it is hard for me to take my kiddos with me.

Kathi (31:37.772)

Mm hmm. Yeah.

Kathi (31:49.356)

Right, sure.

Kathleen (32:02.376)

logistically and expensive, you know, that’s a big trip. It’s hard to figure out the Airbnb where we’re going to be staying. It’s hard just to take the week off work. It’s just hard. I wouldn’t give up that time for anything. The time that I spent nurturing new relationships with my cousins and my cousin’s fiance and seeing my kids and seeing the family grow and not being stuck in the past of what the family was in 1950.

Kathi (32:17.912)

Yeah.

Kathleen (32:31.624)

But seeing the family as it is in 2024 was an immense gift to me. It was a blessing to me, even when it hurt, even when it was hard. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. I wish I could have had that and given her the gift of a beautiful space to live at the same time.

Kathi (32:48.578)

Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen, this is such a good reminder to not let your life become small. To ask for the help to change the light bulb, to take care of the mold the first time you see it, or ask somebody, how do I do this? This big, beautiful house became smaller and smaller because she didn’t know what to do.

Kathleen (32:57.288)

Hmm.

Kathi (33:15.114)

And it’s okay that you don’t know what to do. Roger and I are the world’s living example of like, we don’t know what to do. Like living in this big house and you know, what do you do? And so to get comfortable asking for help, get comfortable asking for help from your family, from friends, because people love you and they wanna help out. Kathleen, this has been a precious time. Thanks so much for spending it with me.

Kathleen (33:23.006)

I’m

Kathleen (33:43.56)

Thanks for making the space for it, Kathi.

Kathi (33:46.082)

Friends, thank you for being here. You’ve been listening to Clutterfree Academy. I’m Kathi Lipp. Now, go create the clutter-free life you’ve always wanted to live.