The story you tell beautifully here is one we've all lived. Curiously, it's not always weird odds and sods that inspire these dilemmas. While tidying the storage room last week, I found a pair of classically elegant brass candlesticks that used to sit on the Maynard family table. Nobody wants brass candlesticks anymore.
I'll be laughing all day at one of the lines from your wonderful article...."What if we need them someday"...... Our "stuff" everywhere still encircles our daily lives ...and forces me to ask that question every day....
"Was the broken folding chair being saved for someone she hoped would stop visiting?" my next thought would be, "Hmmm....who?!" I think your writing perfectly reflects how each of us think, rationalize, organize the detritus of our lives.
Allow the reminisce? When I left Colorado I was 47 and did a crazy cleanout due to circumstance; now some of those things I wish I had been able to keep. So just remember you and the hub have a couple more decades+ to admire things that may only mean something to you, but they do. Words of completely unsolicited advice, sorry, AND that means that you struck a chord. ~J
I fall somewhere in between minimalist and maximalist. I don't hang onto a lot of things, but the ones I keep are probably with me for life. My husband, on the other hand ... Never mind that we don't camp anymore, and a nephew would be happy to have the equipment. You never know when we might decide to take up camping again, right? (Never.)
Strings and strings of outdoor Christmas lights that he wouldn't let me give to someone who might actually put them up. This year, I told him if we kept them, he had to put them up - and he did. (I like Christmas lights, so I admit this felt like a small victory.) I could go on, but you get the idea. Thanks for the opportunity to vent a little.
Good for you! Cleaning AND sharing. I started thinking of a few examples and in about 5 minutes of reflection I came up with more than I have space to write. But the top two are these: a rug from my mom's grandmother's cottage on Lake George - still in use; every camera my father and I have ever owned, safely stored in his Navy trunk from 1943. Yup. You never know when film cameras will be back...
The story you tell beautifully here is one we've all lived. Curiously, it's not always weird odds and sods that inspire these dilemmas. While tidying the storage room last week, I found a pair of classically elegant brass candlesticks that used to sit on the Maynard family table. Nobody wants brass candlesticks anymore.
I'll be laughing all day at one of the lines from your wonderful article...."What if we need them someday"...... Our "stuff" everywhere still encircles our daily lives ...and forces me to ask that question every day....
"Was the broken folding chair being saved for someone she hoped would stop visiting?" my next thought would be, "Hmmm....who?!" I think your writing perfectly reflects how each of us think, rationalize, organize the detritus of our lives.
Allow the reminisce? When I left Colorado I was 47 and did a crazy cleanout due to circumstance; now some of those things I wish I had been able to keep. So just remember you and the hub have a couple more decades+ to admire things that may only mean something to you, but they do. Words of completely unsolicited advice, sorry, AND that means that you struck a chord. ~J
I fall somewhere in between minimalist and maximalist. I don't hang onto a lot of things, but the ones I keep are probably with me for life. My husband, on the other hand ... Never mind that we don't camp anymore, and a nephew would be happy to have the equipment. You never know when we might decide to take up camping again, right? (Never.)
Strings and strings of outdoor Christmas lights that he wouldn't let me give to someone who might actually put them up. This year, I told him if we kept them, he had to put them up - and he did. (I like Christmas lights, so I admit this felt like a small victory.) I could go on, but you get the idea. Thanks for the opportunity to vent a little.
Good for you! Cleaning AND sharing. I started thinking of a few examples and in about 5 minutes of reflection I came up with more than I have space to write. But the top two are these: a rug from my mom's grandmother's cottage on Lake George - still in use; every camera my father and I have ever owned, safely stored in his Navy trunk from 1943. Yup. You never know when film cameras will be back...