I hope you all had a great summer with a little R and R to get you through to the end of another whirlwind year.
I have been helping my Mom with a very significant downsize the past few months. She has been in the same house for 38 years and while I and my siblings are guilty of stashing a few childhood items in the back of a couple closets, it is safe to say the bulk of accumulated ‘treasures’ are Mom’s alone. My Dad’s domain was the garage and the barn and various other out-buildings and the yard and the side of the driveway and in the driveway… but I will save that sorry tale of excess for another month.
So here am I trying to be diplomatic and also sensitive because the entire process of sorting, donating and moving is stressful enough for the average person, but when you are 80 and discovering that all your beautifully curated collections of Royal Doulton figurines, souvenir teaspoons and china teacups are being roundly rejected by the very people they were meant to be passed to, well, you can maybe empathize. Anyhoo, it hasn’t all been woe and despair. My Mom has also laughed with us about some of her collections and her feeble attempts to defend their continuing existence, for instance, I was packing some linen and discovered that my Mom had decided to keep about 6 different duvets. Her argument was that they were all different weights ie; summer cotton, fall and winter feather, you get the idea. But then she also planned to take the one currently residing on her bed and the one in the guest bedroom bringing the total to 8. Then I pointed to a stack of wool blankets and asked where they were going and she insisted they be packed and moved too as they were all ‘really good wool blankets!’ So apparently she is secretly planning to move into an 8 bedroom mansion or a commune or maybe open a hotel because she also made me pack a large number of corresponding bed sheets and pillow cases! We had similar conversations about the importance of her extensive canning jar collection, kleenex box hoard, various dining sets and 4 large soup pots that although seemed to me to be identical, were all different according to Mom. It appears we have retained slightly fewer household items than Buckingham Palace but she remains adamant that ‘everything is essential!’
I don’t think the moving truck or the storage locker I rented will be big enough…
I am begging you all, where ever you may be in your walk of life, reduce, re-use and recycle! It’s good for the planet, your wallet and the poor sap who will be in charge of sorting your life when you pass!