Goodbye Stuff

Getting rid of "stuff" if you're an amateur collector as I was all my life, is almost traumatic. In the process of getting-rid-of, you feel as though you are grieving. When it was time to re-enter the storage I had for many years to see things that were more than mere objects being removed to throw out, was like opening a crypt. There were the pictures, sports items, old toys of  family, lamps and other pieces of furniture that were put there when they became unused or outdated. Now, this day of reckoning, all of what I was looking at seemed to be waiting, having expected me to bring them all back to life. Each time I went to storage and deposited something else, secretly I promised it was only temporary. Made me feel better to lie. I tried to ignore the memories that came rushing back this day of removal.  So many people associated with my stuff had died and all that seemed to remain of them, were things they had given me or shared with me or left to me and now they would be taken away by strangers to the dumpster or a thrift store and I felt unfaithful. There were the small door carpets that lived in my hallways and greeted all the feet that stepped on them into my many homes. Here was the violin that an old man played for other old men and women and delighted them. It  lay inside the  worn leather case, now silent. And there on that table, was a large carton filled with the letters that my former high school pals sent to enter their biographies in our reunion magazine fifty years later. How could I send this precious box of once real lives to the garbage? Here was the little table and chair set where  my child and that of his children sat  for snacking and painting and playing games. The marks on it were made by little hands and toys. Now it would be broken up and gone. Over in the corner, was an antique chair and lamp, both over one hundred years old and ugly and worn. No one wants old things any more. Everyone young, wants something white and turquoise and brand new. "We don't want your old junk" is evidently the reason. The young don't have space for "junk" in a functional world. Understandably. My "old junk"  is, however, full of memories: the tea sets that were put out proudly during wedding, baby showers and birthday parties. No one cares about fine china or elegant tea pots or floral trays or cut crystal. Today, everything is served in pottery that has to be en tone with the decor of the room or what is currently in fashion. And if it doesn't match it doesn't go. And not too much of it, please. And that's okay. Times change. Out are the lovely little statues of ladies holding flowers in big skirts and little dogs and birds in colourful glazes. Using silver tea services for special occasions went out with having to polish them. These days everyone is too "busy" to bother hand cleaning. It must be instant or not at all. But I love to remember how cleaning the tarnish while doing it together with relatives and friends, made it an occasion and we delighted in planning the party while we polished. Other "stuff" such as skis that no one uses any more or can't, the fishing gear for dammed or dried up streams, or the small carpets that are still good but don't "go" with anything: all  have to leave. Boxes of papers: estate material, manuscripts that weren't sent, piles of letters in the days when we used stamps and the writers were alive then, boxes of baby shoes and clothes that still smell of baby, a husband's favorite shirt and a memory shoe, one he had re-soled over and over because he said it fit him too well to get rid of. It  all has to go. When all the "stuff" that has to go is stacked up against the storage room wall ready for  pick up and discard, you know you can't be there to watch. You'll wait in the car as it's put into the truck and tell yourself that nothing can take away your memories. They are so important in this one life, that they don't need to be present to keep always.