- Joined
- Feb 9, 2004
- Messages
- 17,077
You Can't Take It With You - June 13, 2007
My husband and are in the throes of building a house, We haven't moved in 30 blessed years. We are overloaded with "stuff." But I hope this will be a useful column even if you're not planning to move for 30 years. The broader, universal theme I want to unpack (sorry) here is stuff and how we relate to it.
Husbands and wives frequently have very different styles of relating to stuff. One is a keeper, the other is of the "get rid of it if you're not using it" ilk. My husband has finally named and claimed his disease, "junkaholism." To his credit, he has bit his lip, turned his back, closed his eyes and cried inside as we've sorted, pitched, recycled, sent to thrift stores, burned, sold to the metal scrap yard, given to neighbors, friends or relatives more stuff than you'd think could be crammed in a 1100-square foot house and two sheds.
And even after all of that, we still have a lot of stuff.
If being a bit of a pack rat is a problem of my husband's, biting off more than I can chew or optimistically thinking "it won't be that big of a deal" is a fault of mine. All winter Stuart kept saying, "We better start packing what we can--shouldn't we be packing the clothes?" And I kept saying, "The clothing is the least of our concern. I can pack all that in a night or two." And I'm right about that, but what he was really meaning by "clothing" was all the upstairs stuff (as opposed to the basement stuff). Now that we're nearing the wire, I'm seeing that it is not so much the actual packing that takes time, as the sorting, cleaning, making decisions, organizing, getting the right size and kind of boxes, and then putting all this into temporary storage (in our case). Meanwhile you also have to work, sleep, buy groceries, fix food, eat, clean. So, we didn't start the heavy-duty packing any too soon, and he ends up being right once again.
I'm so glad we didn't try this when we still had kids at home! Yes, they could have helped more with the packing, but they were also so busy during high school they kept us busy, too: running to many events, concerts, recitals, etc. And when they were younger, I don't even want to think about the stress of dealing with little ones while facing deadlines to pack and clean. My hat is off to all who manage those kinds of situations.
One of the hardest parts of growing older and "downsizing" is giving up our attachments to the special, sentimental objects which we've accumulated throughout life. All five members of our family have had to bite our lips as we've donated or junked those high school papers, elementary school art, and (me) notebooks from a year spent abroad.
Even when we think we've adopted a "light rein" on our things, we are earthly creatures with earthly, physical attachments to the things we enjoy in life.
The sight of another family's pile of empty moving boxes was rather striking to me recently. They were finished with moving, and of course no longer needed or wanted their boxes. Now boxes are sometimes in short supply (with stores needing to flatten, recycle, and get them out of the way as soon as possible), so it struck me that for awhile you hoard and gather up packing boxes to put your valuable "stuff" into. The boxes organize, keep safe, and carry the contents of your physical existence to your new location. Once there, you are ready to discard them.
It is that with way our souls and bodies, too. Our bodies are like boxes--temporary holding places for the valuable stuff inside. There will come a time when we no longer need the boxes: when we arrive at our new address or heaven, in Christian belief. The valuable stuff inside (our souls, what makes us tick) is all we'll take with us to our new location!
Contributed by Melodie Davis: [email protected] Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way
My husband and are in the throes of building a house, We haven't moved in 30 blessed years. We are overloaded with "stuff." But I hope this will be a useful column even if you're not planning to move for 30 years. The broader, universal theme I want to unpack (sorry) here is stuff and how we relate to it.
Husbands and wives frequently have very different styles of relating to stuff. One is a keeper, the other is of the "get rid of it if you're not using it" ilk. My husband has finally named and claimed his disease, "junkaholism." To his credit, he has bit his lip, turned his back, closed his eyes and cried inside as we've sorted, pitched, recycled, sent to thrift stores, burned, sold to the metal scrap yard, given to neighbors, friends or relatives more stuff than you'd think could be crammed in a 1100-square foot house and two sheds.
And even after all of that, we still have a lot of stuff.
If being a bit of a pack rat is a problem of my husband's, biting off more than I can chew or optimistically thinking "it won't be that big of a deal" is a fault of mine. All winter Stuart kept saying, "We better start packing what we can--shouldn't we be packing the clothes?" And I kept saying, "The clothing is the least of our concern. I can pack all that in a night or two." And I'm right about that, but what he was really meaning by "clothing" was all the upstairs stuff (as opposed to the basement stuff). Now that we're nearing the wire, I'm seeing that it is not so much the actual packing that takes time, as the sorting, cleaning, making decisions, organizing, getting the right size and kind of boxes, and then putting all this into temporary storage (in our case). Meanwhile you also have to work, sleep, buy groceries, fix food, eat, clean. So, we didn't start the heavy-duty packing any too soon, and he ends up being right once again.
I'm so glad we didn't try this when we still had kids at home! Yes, they could have helped more with the packing, but they were also so busy during high school they kept us busy, too: running to many events, concerts, recitals, etc. And when they were younger, I don't even want to think about the stress of dealing with little ones while facing deadlines to pack and clean. My hat is off to all who manage those kinds of situations.
One of the hardest parts of growing older and "downsizing" is giving up our attachments to the special, sentimental objects which we've accumulated throughout life. All five members of our family have had to bite our lips as we've donated or junked those high school papers, elementary school art, and (me) notebooks from a year spent abroad.
Even when we think we've adopted a "light rein" on our things, we are earthly creatures with earthly, physical attachments to the things we enjoy in life.
The sight of another family's pile of empty moving boxes was rather striking to me recently. They were finished with moving, and of course no longer needed or wanted their boxes. Now boxes are sometimes in short supply (with stores needing to flatten, recycle, and get them out of the way as soon as possible), so it struck me that for awhile you hoard and gather up packing boxes to put your valuable "stuff" into. The boxes organize, keep safe, and carry the contents of your physical existence to your new location. Once there, you are ready to discard them.
It is that with way our souls and bodies, too. Our bodies are like boxes--temporary holding places for the valuable stuff inside. There will come a time when we no longer need the boxes: when we arrive at our new address or heaven, in Christian belief. The valuable stuff inside (our souls, what makes us tick) is all we'll take with us to our new location!
Contributed by Melodie Davis: [email protected] Melodie is the author of eight books and writes a syndicated newspaper column, Another Way
