I find myself torn when it comes to Laura's stuff. Still. Nearly two and a half years since she died.
I cleared out a whole massive amount of her clothes a couple of weeks ago, and feel fine about it.
I got on a little spree and pulled out half of our board games to donate or sell with effectively no guilt earlier tonight.
I bumped her pillows off the bed a few minutes ago and immediately had to pick them up and get them back into place.
I don't leave her pillows there because of magical thinking. I'm not trying to preserve the scene so that it's ready for her to come back. I'm preserving it because I'm uncomfortable with the visible emptiness I'd see without the pillows there. I kept a few of her shirts in the closet so that I don't have to see an empty wall there too.
I know that the items themselves in many cases aren't what I'm trying to preserve. I'm holding onto things because they come with memories attached, and I feel better holding those memories close. But it seems like I can reduce the number of items sometimes as long as I keep a category there. I can get rid of some of her clothes, because I'm keeping some of her clothes. I can get rid of some of the games, because I'm keeping the games that were more important. The pictures of everything help, but they're not enough maybe. Maybe they're just not enough yet. Maybe they'll never be enough. I don't really know, it's hard to tell.
I can say, though, that I missed Laura severely over and over again today. Nothing dramatic or bad happened, but the little instances of loneliness just kept appearing, and her absence just kept continuing.