Pieces of Me
41 comments | September 13th, 2011
(story by MIr from WouldaCouldaShoulda.com)
The irony isn't lost on me that I'm a compulsive blogger—with a deep need to discuss and remember all of my precious feeeeeeelings—yet I consider myself a fairly unsentimental person. But I don't see this two stances as conflicting; I am tremendously sentimental about emotions, but surprisingly unsentimental about stuff.
It wasn't always this way, of course. As a child and young adult I attached deep significance to plenty of things. I collected tickets and playbills from shows I'd seen or been in; I had a container dedicated to movie stubs; and for most of high school and college, I not only journaled, I kept every single note (high school) and letter (college) that I received. This was before everyone texted each other and sent emails and had blogs and Facebook, of course, because I am old. That meant I had multiple boxes full of correspondence, to the tune of about a dozen giant 3-ring binders that got boxed up and trucked to the next place every time I moved. (And I moved a lot, during and after college.)
On the rare occasions when I lost track of something I'd deemed important, I felt like the world was collapsing. In particular, I remember that after my step-grandfather died, my grandmother gave me the mezuzah charm he'd worn on a necklace. I was deeply moved that she'd given me something so important to him, and it made me feel better to have something of his as I grieved his passing. One day I walked a couple of miles to our local mall to do something (I don't recall if I was meeting friends or what; this was during my teenagerhood, when "hanging out at the mall" was the thing to do), and when I got home, I realized the mezuzah was gone. The loop at the top of it, that the chain went through, must've broken. I retraced my steps for hours, but I never found it. I was crushed. I felt like I'd betrayed Ira's memory. Really, it felt like losing him all over again.
The items about which I felt strongly weren't all that numerous, but those boxes of correspondence kept moving from house to house with me, even though I hadn't opened them for years. They went from one basement to another, and with each move I would open one, remove a binder, flip through the pages, and remember who I used to be.
I don't know how it happened; it wasn't a conscious thing, I don't think, but over time, objects loosened their hold on me. Maybe it was having kids, and realizing that the things that really mattered to me weren't ones that could be stuffed in boxes. Maybe it was watching some people I love struggle with hoarding tendencies. Maybe it was just part of my growing and changing and, ultimately, stepping into a very different life than the one I used to have.
When I remarried, I'm sure the process could've been more complicated, but I'm not sure how—my husband was selling his house in Georgia, we were buying a different house in Georgia, and I was trying to sell my house in New England and move myself and the kids. Most of my energy in those last days before the move went into trying to sustain some sort of normalcy for the kids and getting them through the end of the school year, and also keeping the house tidy for showings. Somehow, with 24 hours to go before the moving truck arrived, I still had a houseful of stuff to deal with, and quickly.
My husband came up to help—the last long trek he'd have to make to me—and he brought reinforcements. One of his brothers is a total workhorse; give him a task and he'd go get it done. And so it was probably inevitable that we ended up in the basement of the house I was about to leave, surrounded by boxes and miscellaneous stuff, trying to give my brother-in-law some direction.
I took a deep breath. "Everything on these shelves goes in the truck," I said. "The rest of it… let's separate out anything usable for Goodwill, and the rest can go in the trash." I went back upstairs ostensibly to resume packing elsewhere in the house, but really because I didn't want to see what was being thrown out. I'd just given him permission to chuck all of the history I'd been lugging around for decades.
We moved. I brought a lot of stuff, it's true, but there were three of us. Most of my "baggage" had been trashed, both literally and metaphorically. I felt great.
Every now and then, I feel a small pang. Maybe I'd like to have those journals from high school? Maybe those letters from long-ago loves would give me a chuckle if I still had them? But I don't.
I still have the memories, faded though they may be. And that's enough, I think, because I don't ever want to be that person who believes she's the sum of her stuff. It's a hard mentality to escape, in our culture. But someday, when I'm old, I want to be able to look back and say I had a rich and full life… and hopefully that won't include a house full of junk!
Are you sentimental about objects? Has your perspective changed with age, either way?
(read more Mir here. You'll be glad you did.)
41 comments
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MCS
Posted on September 13, 2011
My sentimentality runs mostly to our kids’ things.
We have a rule, that for every new thing they get serendipitously (ie if it’s not a typical gift getting occasion) they have to give 5 things away to goodwill.
They’ll dutifully pick out their 5 things, and inevitably I find myself saying “no, you can give snuffy away, he was your favorite animal when you were a baby! This tattered copy of “Goodnight Moon”? Are you kidding me? We have to keep this forever.”
My stuff? Give me my laptop, my original copy of East of Eden, my favorite shoes, and I’m done.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
I just have to say that I love that a book is one of those necessary items for you.
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Lacey Lu
Posted on September 13, 2011
You will have to rip my family photo albums (the old kind, not the digital kind) from my cold, dead fingers. I guess I see them more as history then things, but they mean the world to me.
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meghann @ midgetinvasion
Posted on September 13, 2011
I don’t count photos as “stuff”, I think they get a pass.
My grandmother is the family historian and has tons of photo albums I’ll inherit someday. They date back to the 1800′s, so they definitely count as “history”, and a few generations down the line, they’ll probably feel the same way about the pictures we’re taking now.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
I guess (like Meghann) I tend to discount photos from this equation. That IS history.
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Mom24@4evermom
Posted on September 13, 2011
But there’s so much guilt!! I know people who have every card and picture their child’s ever created and I barely have anything. We have a very small house, there’s literally no storage, yet I can’t let go of the guilt and the little voice that says I’m a bad mother because I don’t keep their stuff.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
I have one (small!) box in my closet of select items I save from each school year. Let go of the guilt — I doubt that’s the measure of a mother’s love, or a lot of us are in trouble.
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meghann @ midgetinvasion
Posted on September 13, 2011
I’m definitely an old sap. I do purge from time to time, but there are certain things I’m just not able to let go of. The current thing is some boxes in my closet. It’s my mom and her parents’ things. That whole side of the family died and it feels like those boxes are all that’s left of my family. I know it’s probably silly to feel that way, but there it is.
I also have a hard time getting rid of the kids’ things, but as more and more friends have babies, it gets easier. It really helps to have someone to give the baby clothes TO.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Totally get what you’re saying, Meghann. If you have room… well, what’s the harm?
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el-e-e
Posted on September 13, 2011
I still have some of my received-during-college letters (not boyfriends’, per se, but ones that were important to me), and all my old journals. I recently read some of a journal during an insomnia-riddled 2:00 am hour. I think I’m glad to still have those parts of me, but I do fret about possible hoarder-like tendencies.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Quick check: Do you have rats in your house that you feed by throwing food on the kitchen floor? No? You’re probably okay.
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Kendra
Posted on September 13, 2011
When I was fourteen a huge flood swept through my home and took with it anything that wasn’t higher than five feet off the ground. After that flood I became besieged with worry that it was going to flood every time it rained (counseling helped with this eventually. YAY! counseling!!!) so I refused to replace most of my stuff. I have things now but except for a few truly sentimental keepsakes I prefer to live in such a way that I don’t feel like I “need” things.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Oy, that sounds like a hard way to learn that stance. I’m so sorry. You know, we’d had some basement flooding (leading to a bunch of stuff being ruined) before I moved from that last house, so I wonder if that wasn’t part of it for me, too. Less stuff to get wrecked!
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OOC
Posted on September 14, 2011
Totally agree with Mir…a tough way to learn that. Can’t help but wonder if there’s any part that feels liberating not to be attached to stuff…despite the hardship that lead you to there?
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diane
Posted on September 13, 2011
May I borrow your BIL? I’m packing to move; I’ve lived in this flat 20 years. I do purge on a regular basis, but I swear stuff has been reproducing behind my back.
The things I’m sentimental about are also family heirlooms of a sort: the little upholstered chair my grandfather made for my first birthday (and is still in great shape 50 years later), my grandmother’s treadle sewing machine and cedar chest and a few other things.
I do keep my journals, simply because the only *safe* way to dispose of them is for me personally to burn them, lest anyone dare look at my private thoughts. Fortunately, these only go back about ten years.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Now I am paranoid that we didn’t burn my journals….
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Tenessa
Posted on September 13, 2011
I have ALWAYS been a stuff keeper, but change seems to be in the wind. I tried to keep everything my oldest had ever drawn, and that was easy because he never drew…until Kindergarten when they color and draw and craft like mad-little-old-southern-ladies. I ended up with boxes of crap from ONE YEAR OF PUBLIC SCHOOL for ONE CHILD. So, my philosophies on stuff keeping are changing. It’s a slow process. I still have this driving need to OWN every book I’ve ever read. And I read a lot.
I was perusing some boxes in the attic looking for my high school transcript so I could officially notify the state of my intent to homeschool when I came across a couple of shoe boxes full of artfully folded notes. From Eighth Grade. We used to write little notes back and forth to one another, my bestie and I, and exchange them between classes. They were never very long, just a few lines of gossip or ideas or thoughts or feelings. Little hand written tweets, as it were.
I got all excited about reading the inanities that most likely was contained in notes that felt MONUMENTAL at the time. So I opened one…I couldn’t find any words AT ALL on it. So I opened another and another. THEY WERE ALL UNREADABLE! Because they were all in CODE. We had come up with a code and each had a cypher hidden in our respective bedrooms. I, apparently, kept the nicely folded and encoded notes, but not the cypher. Now, I wonder. Did I think I was going to magically remember what our conversation was about on March 23, 1989?
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Oh, Tenessa, I’m not laughing AT you, I’m just… uhh… laughing….
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dad
Posted on September 13, 2011
You’ve come a long way baby!
Congratulations. And as I have always told you, “the best is yet to come.”
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
You are smart, old man.
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Megan
Posted on September 13, 2011
I was a terrible hoarder of Very Important Things when I was a kid which is probably why I was blessed with a hoarder of Very Important Things of my own to cope with! I got over my hoarding tendencies right quick because moving 19 times will kind of do that to a person (really, pack it and unpack it four, maybe five times and you are suddenly SO OVER IT). I tell my own darling hoarder that there is a difference between remembering something and wanting something.
Of course that’s gone out the window in the last few years as at first it seemed that EVERYTHING that belonged to my [missing at the time, now presumed dead] husband was sacred and precious – really, it took a year to get rid of old t-shirts, far longer to start going through other clothes. We still have uniforms and notebooks and hats and… just strange stuff, some meaningful, but much of it just, well, just his. The deal in the past has been that no one gets rid of Kaj’s stuff without clearing it with other members of the family, but since all three kids are now scattering to the winds (and to very small flats) and as I’m facing a Very Major Move Indeed this policy is going to have to change.
Sigh. Is there some sort of fast remedy for a one-time-hoarder-now-totally-reverted?
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Megan, I don’t have the answer, but I sort of feel like someone in your situation gets a pass because it’s all you have left of someone you loved and lost in a traumatic way, you know? I think you probably make sure the kids each have something of his they want and you decide what you need to feel like you still have something, and then… let the rest go. How you do that, of course, I have no idea.
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OOC
Posted on September 14, 2011
We think you said it really beautifully…”stuff, some meaningful, but much of it just, well, just his.”
You and the others will decide which is which in your ways. Us, we err on the side of keeping more now since you can always give it away but can rarely get it back later.
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Anonymous
Posted on September 13, 2011
I once read a suggestion to photograph kids’ artwork and projects. Then save the photo but not the art/project. This is a great way to save larger/3D art projects. This suggestion could be applied to all kinds of items. In the digital age, the photos would only take the space of a DVD or two…instead of boxes and boxes in the basement or attic!
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Love that idea!
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a
Posted on September 13, 2011
I used to keep EVERYTHING. I have huge sentimentality over material objects. I am crushed when something gets broken/wrecked. My husband is the opposite. I am a very cluttered person (mind and spirit), and am surrounded by clutter because of this. Moving to this most recent dwelling which has absolutely no storage space has changed me a lot, as has my emotional maturity. Cleaning out my mother’s house after her death had a huge impact on me. I don’t want my children to have to go through boxes and bins and containers full of stuff that had intense meaning to me, but is completely meaningless to them.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Excellent point… the question is, did it change how you handle saving stuff?
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Headless Mom
Posted on September 13, 2011
I’ve been working on getting rid of that stuff. I’ve kept a few of the notes from my best friend but like you said, it’s freeing to chuck the rest. I still have a long way to go but I’m getting there!
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
Embrace the freedom!
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j
Posted on September 13, 2011
I don’t think I’m terribly sentimental. My keeping of stuff is more because I feel like I SHOULD, not because I really want to or think I’ll ever need/want it. For example, my mom paid to have my wedding dress professional packaged up in a box. Now I have a box containing my wedding dress. But really, I don’t care about it. I’m not so attached to a store bought dress that I’m going to insist my daughter wear it. My step-daughter is a terrible pack rat and she’s only 12. But I think that is due in part to her mom moving a lot when she was little and therefore feeling the need to keep everything or she may end up with nothing.
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
A few years back I wanted to get rid of my (first) wedding dress and my daughter had a fit, even though I know full well she will be too tall to wear it even if she wanted to. (Also, nice symbolism. “I think I’ll wear the dress from my mother’s failed marriage!”) But my parents graciously took the dress in for me so that I wouldn’t have to store it, but my daughter was placated. Sigh.
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Charlene
Posted on September 14, 2011
That symbolism is exactly why I couldn’t believe Prince William used his mother’s engagement ring. Doom! Doom!
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Brigitte
Posted on September 14, 2011
Hee, J, I also didn’t care at all about my wedding dress, probably would have donated it to Goodwill except that my mom also insisted on paying to have it professionally packaged; now it’s been sitting in the crawlspace for 20 years.
It’s funny, because I AM sentimental about a lot of my stuff and don’t want to let it go, maybe because we had very little when I was a child? But thinking on it, at least 90% of that “stuff” is my book collection, which I do refer to and reread books every so often. Hubby asks why I don’t ditch it, since I can go to libraries. He doesn’t understand that most of my collection is obscure, mass-market paperback, single printings of weird scifi and horror and fantasy that nobody else ever seems to have heard of.
As far as kiddo’s artwork, I pile it up for a couple years. Then, when enough time has gone by that I can be rather heartless, I go right through and dispose of most of it. Of course, I bury it deeply in the garbage so she’ll never know!
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Mir
Posted on September 14, 2011
I, too, am a secret thrower-away-er. High five!
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another sue
Posted on September 14, 2011
I don’t see any use of the “word” that describes a lot of what I own: valuable-important-stuff-I-cannot-live-without. I live in a house that my grandparents built and I say no one ever moved out, they just died and left their stuff behind. What should have been taken to the burn barrel many, many years ago now looks like family archives. Valentines from the 20′s! The Mason jar on my desk dated 1858! (The list is way too long for a public forum such as this.) Meanwhile, I have a difficult time getting off of dead center to do anything about it. Many many years ago I had a house fire and lost nearly everything. One would think that would have taught me that while it all burns the same, it also comes back. But so far? Struggling. Probably need your BIL, your hubby, YOU, and the kids to make a dent in this mess. I’ll provide the hot dogs (do they make vegetarian hot dogs?).
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Pris
Posted on September 14, 2011
I save old computers, I haven’t the heart to throw them away. I have two so far, although I’m only saving one clunky CRT monitor. Mind you, the oldest one is a 486 PC. We still have a 286 at my childhood home.
When I hear about people throwing away perfectly good electronics just because they bought a new one, I want to strangle someone.
So, that’s three computers for one person, saved through several moves and new apartments. I’ll get rid of them eventually. Just…no need to do that yet.
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Daisy
Posted on September 14, 2011
I lost most of my “stuff” in a hurricane. And after you get over the initial shock and grieving ( yes – you can grieve for a house) it can be very freeing! I do occasionally still miss some things, like my grandparents china or a particular picture of my kids. But i certainly dont hang on to things like I use to. I find I like not having clutter around. Ive moved a lot since then too and that helps keep the clutter down. Everyone should have to move every couple of years. Its too much trouble to move junk!
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Charlene
Posted on September 14, 2011
I got the clutter gene from both of my parents. I found that as I got older clutter really started to bother me. So I started purging things about 6 years ago. I had boxes and boxes of things that I’d moved five or six times, but I’d never sorted (or even opened) them in that time.
I decided that I would only keep things that I used on a regular basis or really loved. The only exceptions were books and family photos. I’ve probably gotten rid of enough stuff to fill a couple of dumpsters over the last several years, and I love it! Everything I kept has a place, and I only have two Rubbermaid totes full of miscellaneous stuff in my garage. It was so freeing! I still have to make sure I sort things out and get rid of things on a regular basis, but it’s so much easier to keep doing it once you get started.
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OOC
Posted on September 14, 2011
Here at the house of OOC, we make it a habit to do at least 2 cleansings a year. Out with the old to make room for the new at the holidays and at the end of summer.
And for all those things that we know we should give away but just-can’t-yet, we stick them in the garage, and when we look again, if we haven’t remembered they qere there, they’re gone.
Everything feels lighter afterwards. For at least a minute.
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OOC
Posted on September 14, 2011
Ugh, typos.
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Traci
Posted on September 18, 2011
I’m glad someone else mentioned photographing kids’ artwork. I was lucky enough to read that tip the year my oldest started preschool…so now (atage11) he will come home from school with a project, bursting with pride and beg me to photograph it. It might sit displayed for a couple days but then it is tossed ( usually by him).
I recently learned another useful way to utilize that trick. I decided to donate a bunch of my kids’ clothes but was having trouble letting go of so many items at once. I decided to spread them out over my bed, then took a few pictures. It was strange how easily I could place them in the donation bag after that! Love living in this digital age
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