Bring on the dumpsters!

Good Monday morning. It's a new week full of potential and great possibilities. Hope everyone has a wonderful week planned.

For me this week has been planned for several months now. This is the week we are cleaning out Mom and Dad's house. I've both looked forward to and dreaded this week since it was planned. It is a time to experience memories, which in our case are overwhelmingly good memories, and also can be a bit emotional at times. But I was braced for that part of it so I'm good.

They spent 60+ years living in the same house, moving there when I was only 6 years old. It was a house built to raise a family in, plenty of room for their growing family, which eventually became a shrinking family as we all left home to lead our adult lives. But it was always like coming home to go there. Even late last year during Mom's last months, after not living there for nearly 50 years, it was still so familiar and comforting and just felt like home. So wandering through the house and digging into closets and cupboards, going through stuff stored in the basement, and seeing the things she kept because they obviously meant something to her has brought back a lot of memories.

One thing I have realized is how alike we were in our interests. For many things, I'm the only one interested in items, like her craft items. I inherited her yarn stash, which for me was like Christmas in June! And there doesn't seem to be much competition for her scrapbooking supplies. (Too bad she didn't have a stash of time to go with that!) But the other girls are finding things they shared in common with Mom also. Connie helped her purchase many of her beautiful clothes. And I'm sure the others are also finding common bonds as we clean through the house.

Only in a first-world country do we have the problem of too much stuff...and Mom and Dad were no exception. As they got older and more financially comfortable they were able to accumulate the things they desired. While each item they purchased met a need or fulfilled a desire, it also filled up that big house with "stuff". And it made them happy on some level. 

I am finding it hard to part with many of these things. It's not because it has any great monetary value or is important to me, but it's because it was in some way valuable to them. At moments I find myself wanting to pull things out of the trash and keep them just because they belongs to my parents and meant something to them. But I don't have enough house to be able to keep this stuff, and it honestly means nothing to me beyond the fact that it belonged to Mom and Dad. So I close my eyes and let the dumpster fill up.

However, I may not be closing my eyes quite enough. We have worked for two short days, and I have already brought home two large totes of items to keep. Last evening as I walked in with a tote, Mike gave me the "look", which clearly said I needed to quit dragging things home. So my morning project is to unload and put away the items in at least one tote, mainly because I don't have any empty totes left to take, and I'm sure I will find things to bring home again today. (I might have to sneak in so Mike doesn't ban me from the house!)

As we sort through the remains of Mom and Dad's life I have reflected on several aspects of this. First of all, I am glad they were able to overcome the poverty of their childhoods growing up in the 30's depression and the 40's WWII era, and achieve some level of affluence. I know their early years together were somewhat lean as they were establishing Dad's business and starting their family. Seems they finally arrived after us kids all left home and they weren't trying to feed and clothe a family!

Another thought is that as Americans, living in the most affluent country in the world, that we are overly consumer oriented. Even people who are technically classified as poverty level have way more stuff than they need. Modern media is largely responsible for blasting us 24/7 about our need for new things, and we are buying! 

I am 21 years younger than my mother was, so I can theoretically have about 21 more years to my life, give or take. So in another generation my own children could be going through our house thinking the same things I have been thinking. "How did they get this much stuff?" "Why would they keep this?" "What are we going to do with all this stuff?" And I hope they will just have a dumpster sitting on the curb and toss it in. While my stuff means something to me, just like Mom and Dad's stuff meant something to them, that doesn't mean it will be something my kids want to clutter their homes with. 

The other thing I've been thinking is that I could do my own kids a good deed by clearing out some of this clutter ahead of time. I might be on track to do a bit of this because two projects on our to-do list are to remodel the spare bedroom where the closet is stuffed full of things, and I'm not exactly sure what all is in there, and to do some remodeling in the basement, the other clutter-collector space we have. These two projects will put us face to face with the extra stuff we have that we haven't seen in years and hopefully inspire us to just toss it ourselves. 

So the day is closing in, and I am once more expected to show up to work. And those two totes are calling out to me to be unloaded, and I need to get my day started. I hope everyone has a good week. And if you are into dumpster-diving, come by--we have hit the mother lode!