Hoarding

I've been thinking about Hoarding lately.

Taken from some online dictionary:

• the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value
• living spaces sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed
• significant distress or impairment in functioning caused by the hoarding

Peoples spaces fascinate me. I love walking past apartments with basement suites because then I can sneak a peak how other people live. I am almost obsessed with seeing how people live in my apartment block. Right now, to me, nothing is more fascinating that seeing how someone else is using the exact same space I have.

But this is not why I've been thinking about Hoarding. Growing up I had a friend whose Mother, I am now convinced, was a Hoarder. Their house always seemed dirty and cluttered to me as a child, mountains of stuff everywhere. I used to just think it was hard for them, having a family larger than mine, or chalk it up to just being plain old disorganized. Now, when I remember that house in my head, it reminds me of a hoarders paradise. I have this crystal clear memory of being over once and walking towards my friends kitchen. To get there, we had to cross through the dinning room. If there was a dinning table in there, I never saw it. Basically, there was so much stuff in that room that the only way to get to the kitchen was to follow the small path that someone made through the stuff. As I got older, I remember my friends mother constantly apologising for the mess, the mess that seemed to choke you. The clutter sometimes even spilled over on to their outside deck.

I wonder what it was like to live in that. I lived in a clean, organized house. Not spotless, not show-home clean, but neat and tidy. The difference was just so astounding to me.

I heard someone say once that Children look up to their parents as role models and do their best to be just like us. I sometimes feel like I could hoard everything I've ever touched. Keep everything forever and leave us no place to move, to think. Sometimes I feel like that now in our apartment. But I know it's just a lack of room that's keeping me on the edge of insanity in the hoarding department. I actually purge possessions that aren't needed quiet easily.

Hoarding.. so fucking strange.