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Matt Paxton was just 23 years old when he began to lose the family men in his life.
His father passed away first. Over the next 18 months, he lost his stepfather and both of his grandfathers.
“It was so overwhelming. It was like a wave, like you’re in the ocean and just trying to catch your breath,” Paxton said. “I didn’t really know I was in it until two years later and I just started cleaning everybody’s attics and cleaning up the houses. … I was missing all the men in my family, and I was still having to go through this house, and I didn’t know where to start. And I remember thinking, ‘Man, this really sucks.’”
But the more he uncovered of their lives, the more he began to enjoy the process. And, after finding a family shocker in his paternal grandfather’s tackle box, Paxton was hooked.
Downsizing and decluttering became his passion and his life’s work.
A featured cleaner on A&E’s “Hoarders” and star of the two-time Emmy-nominated PBS series “Legacy List with Matt Paxton,” Paxton shares his downsizing and decluttering expertise in a new book, “Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff.”
Produced in collaboration with AARP, the book addresses downsizing and decluttering from a psychological perspective and draws from Paxton’s experiences in working with thousands of people and families over the past two decades.
“My [maternal] grandfather always said to me, if something sucks, do it as a job because other people will pay you to do it,” Paxton said. “Twenty-two years later, I’m still doing it, and I love it. It’s just fascinating to me.”
His book outlines a manageable, realistic plan for combatting clutter, said Paxton, a Suwanee resident and father of seven in a blended family with his wife, popular minimalist life-style advocate Zoë Kim.
“Everyone knows about Marie Kondo and sparking joy and all that. For my clients, that doesn’t necessarily work. I mean, the reason they have a lot of stuff is because everything sparks joy. With hoarders and seniors, it’s really hard,” he said.
Focusing on why you want to downsize can help you start and maintain the journey, Paxton said.
“What I’ve found is that [some people] are avoiding their decluttering to avoid deciding where they’re going to go next,” he said.
He encourages people to ferret out the things that really are precious to them, showcase them and share the stories of them, which is the basis of his “Legacy List” show.
He’s told countless clients, “People really do want some of your stuff. They just don’t want what you want them to have.” For example, your kids probably don’t want your heirloom china, but they may be very interested in your vintage clothing or something that has a great backstory, he says.
That family shocker Paxton found in the tackle box was a wedding certificate with a backstory he’ll never forget. He found it while helping his dad’s mother clean out her house.
She wanted to marry his grandfather when she was 14 years old, but her mother made her wait until she turned 16. They had been married nearly 70 years when his grandfather passed away.
The wedding certificate was not theirs. It was his grandmother’s mother’s wedding certificate. After doing some quick math Paxton tried to hide it. But his grandmother grabbed it and, in that moment, learned that her mother, who made her wait, had married at 14, Paxton said.
“My grandmother,” he said, “was furious. She said, ‘I can’t believe she took two years away from me.’ And I was thinking, ‘This is so sweet, that a woman that was married for almost 70 years was mad that she lost two of them with him.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is what I want in life.’”
Book Festival of the MJCCA
Matt Paxton is scheduled to appear at this year’s Book Festival of the MJCCA for an author talk on Nov. 17, starting at 11 a.m. The event takes place at the MJCCA, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, GA, 30338. For more information: atlantajcc.org/bookfestival or (678) 812-4005.
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