As my older sister prepares to move back in with my parents, due to an impending divorce, my sisters and I have begun prepping our old rooms to make room for her and her children's belongings. It has been an arduous task because my parents are packrats; they refuse to throw anything away. As my sisters sifted through the garage, we grew frustrated at the old furniture, excessive clothes, and excessive junk that has accumulated from nearly 30 years of living in that house.
In all honesty, even I was guilty. Even though I have moved out of my house years ago, my old room still contains much of my things--mostly books. They are and always will be the bane of moving. I'm good about my clothes--if they don't fit or if I haven't used them, I will donate them. I'm the same with books--if I never liked the book or if it's something I will not miss, I'll donate them to the public library. Yet as a teacher, I acquire more books than I can get rid of.
I now live in an apartment, and I take up about seventy-five percent of the space--mostly through shelving and books and a home office. I do worry that one day I will die and no one will know what to do with my stuff. I don't want that to happen. I wonder about that now as I look at my parents' garage. When I die, I hope the only thing my descendants have to worry about is donating books and clothes and selling my CD collection on Craigslist or eBay.
Last weekend, I carted my books from my old room back up to the apartment. My sister said I should buy more shelves. That's the last thing I want to do: buy more furniture. I was quite envious when the boyfriend said he was able to pack everything he needed in a military-regulated bag. I wish I could do that. If push comes to shove, I wish I could pack up all my clothes into two large suitcases. But that's not easy when I've moved out since 2001. I've acquired furniture that made my life functional and collected knick-knacks that have defined my life. I keep thinking of the day when I will one day move again, and how much of a hassle it is to move and pack up this much stuff. I keep thinking of the day when I will die, and my descendants will probably throw most of my stuff away anyway: to them, it's junk. To me, it's sentimentality and a defined life. I realize my own hypocrisy when it comes to materialistic things. The only difference between me and my parents: I know when to throw stuff out.
Yesterday, I went through my closet. I am going to donate one-third of my clothes. That's a lot of clothes. Just seeing how much more room I have in my closet made me realize how much I don't always need more stuff. I have even rediscovered old clothes that I have forgotten because they were packed away in the depths of storage bins. I feel a great load has been lifted off my back because I got rid of so much stuff. If only going through my home office was just as easy. I spent half a day working through my closet and bedroom, but it takes me days to reorganize my desk and shelves.
If I ever have kids, I hope they have the foresight and enough gumption and deceit to get rid of clothes from when I was thirty. When I retire from my job, I hope new teachers will ransack my classroom for stuff they will need to start their careers. And when I reach my sixties, the goal will be that the garage of my house will still fit two cars (shiny muscle cars of the Dodge or Chevy variety).
Simplify, simplify, simplify.