One of the things I love about the start of a brand new, spanking fresh year is the built in excuse to go a little mad with organizing and tossing. Some of you know exactly what I mean, while others are thinking, “Ugh. I dread it!” Honestly, I get both reactions. For some of us, it’s a high. Maybe it’s a personality type or trait, or something we do because our mom did. Others do it precisely because our moms didn’t, so it’s a wee act of rebellion or a hyper reaction. Okay, now I’m getting lost in the psychological weeds of an obsession I know only too well. For those who dread the hue and cry of people like me, I understand. Going through closets, drawers, files, piles, nooks and crannies can feel like cruel punishment.
And, there’s another reason we always or at least sometimes avoid the organize and toss ritual – it can be hard to part with our things. After all, with any given thing, we:
May need it, you know, someday.
Consider that it’s perfectly good. It would be wasteful to throw it away.
Recall that Great Aunt Sarah gave it to us when….
Paid good money for that overpriced item and better make use of it.
So, the hanging on and the reluctance to let go takes hold. And there is yet another reason which I refer to as the “pointy-toed kitten heels syndrome.” Too long, so let’s just go with “PTKH.” My actual pointy-toed kitten heels no longer hang from a shoe rack being taken over by more orthopedically friendly footwear. They sit in a large, labeled “Consignment” bin. Orchid colored suede with two tiny strips of orchid patent leather. They still make me swoon. But, parked in idle, they would never see the light of day – or the chill of night – if I continued to hold on.
That’s what PTKH syndrome is all about – a holding on that has little to do with practicality, sentimentality or guilt over good money spent. It’s more personal than all of that. It’s the sense of self that a thing, a “mere” thing embodies. Those orchid kitten heels exuded confidence while giving me confidence. They expressed my creative side while reinforcing it. They made me feel authentic – a grown-up version of that three year old prancing around in her grandma’s babushka (European headscarf) and her mother’s 1960s “pocketbook.” That’s hard to let go of because it’s not the shoes; it’s the me that could wear them; the me that inhabited a sense of self, a physical being and a life that time and age have altered.
There is a lot of “altering” going on at this point, and I needn’t subject you to my list because you have your own. As 2025 drew to a close, I realized that I needed to address my PTKH, my longing to hold onto things that reflected who I was in a different stage of my journey. Here’s the shift that has helped me to do so – instead of focusing on what I have lost, what is slipping away with the passage of time and the process of aging, I am loving and appreciating who I have been. Flashing back to the many stages of my life, I think, “Dang, that was awesome. How fortunate I was to have:
Been this.
Done this.
Seen this.
Had this.”
No one and nothing can take away any of it because it lives in my heart and in my memory – a chronicle of my lived life.
I am about to add a few more items to that box headed for consignment. But now, instead of feeling longing or melancholy, I am mostly filled with gratitude. That, and the renewed commitment to being the best of who I am now – at every stage left to me.
