Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

It is amazing how much stuff a human can accumulate in their life. Never is that more evident than when a “For Sale” sign goes up in the front yard. Not just the stuff that you think you need to live, but that other stuff. The stuff that we have assigned meaning too. The stuff we have, or others have shared with us, as caretakers. The baby booties from three generations, the high school sweatshirt, the tea cup from grandma, the hula skirt from that one party, the dried flowers from a funeral. Stuff falls into one of two categories depending on ownership: trash or treasure. My stuff was a memory, a feeling, a part of my life that I didn’t want to forget. And this stuff filled the nooks and crannies of the space in which we lived. In this metamorphosis of living, I realized that I had a boat load of meaningful stuff filling every corner and in this moving journey, I didn’t have time to process any of the feelings around the items before deciding their fate. I’ll say it right in the beginning of this blog- address your “stuff” now. Go through your storage spaces and closets where stuff tends to hide. For which items are you needlessly assigned the role of caretaker. Don’t wait for a move when your time is limited.  

Back on the grey couch, I had my notebook open and pen ready to start mapping out the moving strategy. That’s how I roll. I figured I could take off work a day and a half towards the end of the 30 days we had been given to move out to finish off packing the house. I could pack and sort in the mornings before work and evenings after I got home. I needed to save the rest of my days off for a trip overseas that Fall which we had planned the year before. Silly me.

We decided on a strategy that I once saw from a hoarding show to quickly sort everything into several piles. This way we could make quick decisions and only need to concentrate on what we were going to keep. We had a: Keep/Store, Trash/Throw, Give, and Sell pile. It starts off simple, organized, and according to plan but the flow from the house into those separate piles became a tsunami and we quickly ran out of room. I tried to keep up selling items that I felt had value on Marketplace. I think it was my way of saying that this is worth something, that I didn’t just have junk in my house or perhaps I just really wanted to hang on to it. What a time sucker that process was though. Posting, responding, waiting, reposting due to no shows, etc. James wanted to load everything up in the truck and dump it all at a charity shop from day one. He has very little attachment to most “stuff”. I actually envy him for this trait. We had lots of discussions about how much caretaking he wanted to do (which wasn’t much). We talked about how people’s houses were so full of things that they needed extra garages and storage units which they filled too. I’m not judging as I get it. It really is what you chose to be a caretaker of regarding your things. At first, there was conflict around what I was hanging on to. I perceived his rolling eyes, and outward “what are you going to use this for” was an attack rather than a question. This added fuel to the embers of my stress. He never denied me however when he loaded up grandma’s bedroom set and dropped it off at the charity shop without me knowing (I had promised it to a local charity in the meantime) I lost it. My anger wasn’t about the bedroom set. It was about all the things that I had acquired over my life, things with value, profound memories and meaning, were leaving me. Great memories of people that are no longer here were rekindled when touching the item, or placing it in a special spot. My ancestors and family entrusted me to care for their things and now I am divesting myself of them. Looking back, what a burden we put on others (and they accept) when we pass things down and assign the value of heirloom or value to our memory. Not only does the item get passed down, but so do the caretaking responsibilities. As wonderful as I think that is for some items, I also think it is a heavy responsibility that gets heavier with each added item. My kids reminded me of this in the moving process when they said repeatedly, ‘we don’t want your stuff’. They were really telling me that they don’t want to be the caretaker for things that will weigh them down too or place the same value on those items that I did and certainly don’t have the same memories.

For me, I think the power of things comes from the joy I feel in the curation of the stuff to make our house into a home. I picked up many perfect items at garage sales, store sales, or charity shops to finish out a room or a bookshelf. The things I received from family were intentionally placed or stored for future use. I DIY’d so many things that fit perfectly into that season of the year and I was proud of what I could create on a non-existent budget.

Now, surrounded by the items out of context of the room they were curated for, it felt like the stuff was overwhelming. It became just another frame, or lamp. Seriously, there were 27 bins of Christmas stuff, 10 bins of crafting stuff, 6 bins of Fall stuff, 5 bins of Halloween stuff, 3 bins of clothes that might fit one day, a bin of old newspaper clippings and trophies from high school. And that was just in one corner. Ugh. I was shutting down. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. And buried by bins of stuff.

James stepped in and gave me the permission I unknowingly needed. ‘Let’s get a storage unit and we can sort though all of this later.’ Thank you. I knew 95% of the stuff was “mine” and I needed him to say it was ok to keep it for now. I needed to regain my strength to objectively go through the bins and do another layer of sorting. I needed a little time separated from the stuff. This helped me to step back from my caretaker role to objectively look at the items to see if they would fit into our next chapter. We continued to sell and donate truck loads of stuff divesting ourselves of items that made the initial cut a month before. I didn’t have time to “fix” things that I had saved for years to someday make like new again. I let them go. We slowed down the process by moving the stuff to another location to work on as time allowed.

So many people have said to me, “don’t you feel so much better purging all your stuff?” No. It was a horrible process for me. Sad, exhausting and I still miss some of my things. I didn’t have the “sense of relief” that many people said comes with divesting. I have a depression-era attitude and have a hard time letting go of things that are still useful or could be useful. My head knows that I “can’t take it with me”, and “life is not about things, but experiences”. My heart is slowing catching up.

My call to action for you is to consider, if you don’t practice this already, go through all your things and donate what you aren’t using or haven’t used. I know I had 4 bins of Christmas stuff that never got used for years! I held on to it just in case I needed it as I didn’t want to have to re-buy it. During those years, no one got to use it, like the uselessness of a buried treasure. Get your family involved in the process too. I encourage you to donate usable items, especially gently used toys, to charity shops, give away sites or organizations in the Fall, before Thanksgiving, so those who aren’t as fortunate or don’t prefer to buy new can pick up some nice presents for the holidays.

A year and a half later, reinvigorated by time and sleep, we’ve consolidated personal belongings into a 10x10 storage unit with a bunch more climate-sensitive items in the basement of a relative. This new lifestyle on the road limits us greatly on the stuff as it’s all about weight on the axles and the tongue. Our new lifestyle is teaching us to be intentional in regards to our stuff. I can’t help but think this will translate to our next permanent location.