We talked about this topic before — that of clearing out and binning stuff as one ages and downsizes — and here’s yet another take:
The pain of downsizing has come as a complete shock. My life is etched into the possessions I’m having to cast off for ever.
…and the exposition of her situation follows, which ended when she didn’t de-clutter prior to downsizing, and is now facing life in a small overstuffed [sic] cottage.
I get that. I really do. But as Nadine Dorries worries about that issue, there’s another one: the pain of keeping shared stuff as a constant and sometimes bitter reminder of times long past.
At some point, though, you have to realize that regardless of sentiment, stuff is just stuff. And the part that isn’t understood is that once you’ve done it for the first time, the de-cluttering becomes progressively less hurtful.
And by the way: I covet her late husband’s “hand-forged tools”, even though I have neither space for, nor need of them. See how that works?
A phrase I have used is, “It’s time to let someone else love it.”
I’ll be 71 in a couple weeks and my “possessions” are suffocating me. Literally. I can’t do anything without first moving a whole bunch of “stuff” out of the way, only to have to move it again the next time I want to do something.
We moved here almost 20 years ago and I still have boxes of “stuff” that have not been opened. I got it bad, man.
There is a commercial running locally (I don’t know or care what for) that has the line “nobody wants your spoon collection.” How effing true! All the things that are important to me in my life are only important to me. I have file drawers, closets, and storage boxes full of stuff that nobody else wants or needs. Being that we are once again at the first of the year, the desire to clear away stuff I don’t need or want any more raises its ugly head, and I find myself looking at rental rates for dumpsters, and who I can hire to do the deed for me, as I’m just too old now to do it myself. I’ll probably need tranquilizers, too, to keep me from getting all emotional as I watch my life head off to the county dump.
Little did I know that my collection of 20 stripper club tee-shirts that I acquired in a series of “Buy the shirt off my back” promotions in the eighties would be worthless today.
My late wife and I kept our small starter home, and we had to pile stuff everywhere. She passed, and the kids moved back out after COVID, and I aggressively threw away. I collect CDs and allied WW guns, and the kids already know how to sell what they don’t want. I’ve seen too many hoarder videos; I’m going to start scanning and digitizing old photos and getting those under control too….
If you can’t throw away otherwise, put stuff you aren’t using in a banker’s box, no label except a date 6 months or a year in the future. If you really need something from the box, search for it and put the rest back in the box. When you hit that date, the box goes to the trash or Goodwill unopened.