Why Getting Rid of Things Can Feel Like Admitting Something

There is a blender sitting on top of my fridge.

I bought it years ago with a perfectly sensible plan. We were going to have fresh fruit smoothies. Proper ones. Fruit going in, goodness coming out, one easy little way of getting something useful into me and the family without anybody having to dramatically reinvent their diet. I don't remember imagining us becoming one of those suspiciously healthy families who greet the sunrise with spinach and chia seeds, but there was definitely a future in my head where the blender came out regularly and we all became marginally better nourished because of it.

It has never come out of the box.

Not once.

It hasn't blended a strawberry. It hasn't seen a banana. It hasn't even made it as far as the before-first-use wash you're supposed to give something before it starts touching your food.

And I can't claim I've forgotten about it. The box sits on top of the fridge, so I see it most mornings when I'm getting the milk for cereal or making a cuppa. I stand directly beneath this completely unused piece of kitchen equipment on an almost daily basis.

There it is. Still boxed. Still waiting. Still, as far as I know, perfectly capable of producing all those smoothies we were definitely going to start having several years ago.

Quietly casting judgement.

Obviously the blender isn't actually judging me. It would have to leave the box first, and we've established that nobody in this house appears willing to take such a reckless step.

But objects can acquire meaning after they've been sitting around for long enough. What began as a kitchen appliance has become something slightly different. It isn't just a blender I haven't used anymore. It is evidence of a plan I haven't quite abandoned.

I think that's why getting rid of certain things can feel strangely harder than it should.

Some possessions are easy. If a toaster breaks, you replace it or throw it away. Nobody stands over the bin wondering what disposing of it says about the direction their life has taken.

Other things arrive with a future attached.

The clothes we keep because we might fit into them again. The equipment from a hobby we haven't touched for years. The tools bought for a project we were going to build once we had the time. None of those things is necessarily important by itself, but each can become attached to a version of what we thought our life might look like.

The blender had a future attached to it too.

Fresh fruit. Better habits. Something easy and healthy for the family. Nothing dramatic. That's partly why I still don't think buying it was a bad idea. It was a perfectly reasonable attempt to make one small part of everyday life a bit better.

The problem is that buying something and becoming the person who regularly uses it are two completely different stages of a plan.

I completed the first stage beautifully.

The second has proved less successful.

Yet getting rid of the blender somehow feels more definite than leaving it where it is. Keeping it means the plan hasn't failed. Technically, it just hasn't started yet.

That's the usefulness of not yet.

Not yet allows almost anything to remain possible. I haven't abandoned the idea; life has been busy. I haven't given up on the hobby; I just haven't done it lately. I haven't changed my mind; this simply isn't the right time.

Sometimes that is absolutely true.

Life does have seasons, and people return to things. Something can sit untouched for a couple of years because work, children, money or everything else took priority, then suddenly fit back into life perfectly. An interest doesn't become fake because it has been dormant. A plan doesn't become worthless simply because it had to wait.

Throwing everything away the moment we stop using it would be every bit as daft as keeping absolutely everything forever.

But there must be a point where keeping the object and preserving the possibility stop being the same thing.

My blender has been on top of the fridge for years. Its continued presence has not resulted in one smoothie.

If I genuinely wanted to start tomorrow, I could. I could take the box down, wash the blender, buy some fruit and discover whether either of my children actually wants to drink whatever comes out of it. The possibility hasn't disappeared.

But neither is this particular cardboard box keeping that possibility alive.

If the blender vanished tomorrow, I could buy another one next month. What I'd lose wouldn't really be access to smoothies. I'd lose the comforting little fiction that this particular plan is still permanently waiting to begin.

That's slightly different.

Sometimes we keep something because we might still use it.

Sometimes we keep it because throwing it away would require us to say, I don't think I'm going to do this.

That sentence can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.

Adults aren't always brilliant at changing their minds without treating the change as some kind of failure. If we wanted something badly enough to spend money on it, tell people about it or imagine how it was going to fit into our lives, deciding later that it no longer matters can feel like admitting the earlier version of us was foolish.

Why did I buy it, then?

Why did I spend the money?

Was it another phase?

Did I really think I was going to keep that up?

Nobody else even has to ask. We're perfectly capable of conducting the prosecution ourselves.

So the object stays.

Keeping it avoids the verdict.

There is another advantage to the unopened blender as well: the plan remains completely untested.

The smoothie family that existed when I bought it is still doing brilliantly. Everybody loves the drinks. Nobody complains about bits. Fruit never goes off because somebody forgot it was there. The children never take one sip and announce that it is disgusting. I never discover that dismantling and cleaning a blender every morning is considerably more irritating than I allowed for when I imagined this wonderful new habit.

Nothing has gone wrong because nothing has happened.

Real life tends to be less cooperative with our plans than the version we imagine before we start them.

That's true of more than smoothies. The project we haven't begun can still turn out exactly as intended. The hobby we haven't properly attempted can still become the thing we love. The equipment sitting untouched can still belong to the version of us who absolutely uses it.

Once we start, reality gets involved.

We discover whether we actually enjoy it. Whether we have time for it. Whether the thing we thought would fit naturally into our lives creates more work than we expected. Sometimes we discover that the original idea was great but the method was wrong. Sometimes we discover that we simply don't care as much as we thought we would.

That doesn't make the original intention dishonest.

People are allowed to find things out.

Sometimes a good idea remains a good idea and still doesn't become part of your life.

I think the harder part is accepting that without immediately translating it into I gave up.

Those two things aren't necessarily the same.

Changing your mind isn't always quitting. Letting go of an object isn't automatically abandoning whatever worthwhile idea you attached to it.

Getting rid of the blender wouldn't mean I've given up on feeding my family well. The blender was one possible way of putting something healthier into our diet. It was never health itself.

That distinction applies elsewhere too. Exercise equipment isn't fitness. Art supplies aren't creativity. Tools aren't the project. Clothes from another size aren't your body.

They're objects that became attached to something bigger.

Sometimes they help us move towards that bigger thing. Sometimes they just sit there carrying the idea for us.

And sometimes, after enough time, they start doing something less helpful.

They begin reminding us of the distance between intention and reality.

A thing that once represented possibility starts carrying a tiny accusation. You see the exercise equipment and remember you haven't exercised. You find the abandoned hobby and remember how enthusiastic you were. You open the wardrobe and meet clothes belonging to a version of your body that isn't the one standing there now.

My blender hasn't reached the stage of causing an emotional crisis over breakfast. Its judgement remains fairly mild. Mostly, I find the whole thing funny.

But I still notice it.

Every morning I get the milk and there is a brief reminder of something I intended to do and haven't done. The object remembers the plan for me.

Or, more accurately, it makes me remember.

That's why this isn't really an argument for decluttering. I'm not about to suggest everybody walks through their house throwing away anything they haven't used recently.

Some things deserve to stay.

There may be equipment from a hobby you genuinely miss and fully intend to return to when life changes. A project might have stalled for entirely practical reasons and still excite you whenever you think about it. Something can sit untouched without becoming evidence that it no longer belongs in your future.

A dormant thing isn't necessarily a dead thing.

The difficult question is why you're keeping it.

Do you still want what it represents?

Or do you simply not want to admit that you don't?

From the outside those two situations can look exactly the same. Same box. Same cupboard. Same layer of dust.

The difference only exists in the answer you give yourself.

And even then, the answer doesn't have to be dramatic. There is no requirement to hold a small funeral for every abandoned intention. Sometimes we bought something, didn't use it and eventually realised we weren't going to.

That is allowed to be the whole story.

Not everything we once wanted deserves permanent storage simply because letting it go makes the earlier enthusiasm feel slightly embarrassing.

Equally, not everything needs to go simply because somebody else would call it clutter.

The point isn't getting rid of things.

It is being a little more honest about what we're asking them to keep alive for us.

Which brings me back to the blender.

I have two perfectly legitimate options. I could finally take the bloody thing down, wash it and make a smoothie. Perhaps the plan still appeals to me and all it actually needs is somebody to open the box.

Or I could decide that daily fresh smoothies were a decent idea which never became part of our actual family life, find another home for the blender and stop pretending that the cardboard box above the fridge is somehow helping.

Either would be a decision.

For now, it remains where it has always been.

Tomorrow morning I'll go into the kitchen, put the kettle on and open the fridge for the milk. I'll probably glance upwards and see the same unopened box staring back at me.

Maybe one morning I'll finally take it down.

I still don't know whether that will be because I've decided to use it or because I've decided I don't need it sitting there to prove that I might.