There is no divorce ceremony. So I made one up.

Clutter isn’t a personal failure.

It’s a signal that life has moved faster than your ability to make meaning from it. The fact that you want to make meaning? That’s a good sign.

Divorce. Job loss. Empty nest. These are seismic events, yet the world expects you to just move on. No ceremony. No witness. No moment where someone looks you in the eye and says: Let’s pause and acknowledge what just happened. You worked at that marriage, that job, that chapter of parenting for years. How could that not leave a trail?

But there’s no divorce ceremony. No job loss ritual. Instead, it’s “Are you dating again?” or “How’s the resume looking?” As if the only thing that matters is what’s next, not everything you’re still carrying from what was.

We need rituals for the hard stuff.

After my divorce, and like anyone after a breakup, I quickly got rid of the obvious stuff: “This painting is his, these shoes are mine.” But as the years passed, I started to realize, “Uhh … I appear to have a clutter problem.” This was new for me as it had never been an issue before the divorce.

That’s when I realized it I hadn’t really decluttered. I’d purged but I hadn’t decluttered, symbolically and energetically. So, week by week, I went through everything in the house. It took months. Which makes sense: how could I expect to sort through years of experiences in a matter of days?

Decluttering became my ceremony. Each item I picked up was a decision about what I wanted to carry forward. Each item I let go of was a vow: This version of my life is over. I’m ready for what’s next.

I still remember when I could finally get a new refrigerator. He’d bought the old one which, looking back, was symbolic of his approach to most things. It was cheap and it didn’t work very well. I’ll leave it at that.

But here’s what the ritual taught me: I didn’t just let it go out of spite. I let it go because I finally understood what I actually wanted. I wanted things that are built to last, things with beautiful design, things chosen with intention (that could hold fun magnets!). The old refrigerator had taught me that. And so I passed it on, knowing someone else could make good use of it.

That’s the difference between purging and ritual. Purging is about getting rid of. Ritual is about understanding why, and choosing differently next time.

Decluttering is a rite of passage disguised as a chore.

If you’ve been through a divorce, a loss, a reinvention, and you haven’t decluttered, you’re missing a ritual for which your home is asking. Your home is still holding the weight of what happened. That’s not a character flaw. You’re not messy. You’re mid-transition.

And you need a ritual, not a label maker.