Do you walk into your house and feel like you’re walking into Fibber McGee’s closet? Do you hear George Carlin (yes, the old Hippy Dippy Weatherman!) talking about “stuff”? He complained: “my stuff has stuff”. Is your home getting stuffed? Did you move every last thing you owned to SCCL?
Peter Walsh, the ‘Organizational Expert’ you may have seen on the Learning Channel or Oprah, calls it “memory clutter” - it can interfere with the enjoyment of our lives and our homes. We began our monstrous collections when we were very, very young. We collected things because we liked them, because someone special gave them to us, or because we just could. Along the way we forgot to how to drop what we no longer needed or what was threatening to overwhelm us. We just hate to part with furniture or electronics or old birthday cards. There’s always that sentimental, rarely practical, reason that stays our hand from getting rid of stuff. These days you can find oodles of organizational hints. What we seniors need is not organization for our stuff but elimination of a good lot of it. I’m here to motivate you to make clearance your next project.
When we were in the process of moving to Sun City I came upon a saying that went something like “when the furniture heaves off your life you will love the deliverance.” Well I must say I did delight in the deliverance: less stuff to pack, to move, to find space for in the new house, to clean, to maintain. First I checked with the kids. Lots of nice things from Christmas treasures to silverware found new homes away from ours. I read about a gal who put it to her children like this: “Don’t be concerned, I’m doing just fine, but I’m writing my will. What do you want of what I’ve got. Better yet, come on over and take it now!” Unless it’s your false teeth or eye glasses, what can you loose? Let them ask for what they’d like now - you can always say ‘no‘, but the best thing would be ‘yes’.
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| But sometimes something's gotta give! |
Books? My books had books. I was moving from a house where my husband had built in all the bookcases and storage I could ever need - built in, not moveable! Now the Stephentown Memorial Library has the majority of my books. I was told that many were sold to aid the fund for the new wing, and a quite few were chosen to be added to the shelves. Made me happy to know I could leave something of value there.
Living in over a half a mile on a dirt road, and that road off another road infrequently traveled, I saw no point in having a garage sale for much of the stuff that was left. After all, who would want this stuff if I didn’t want it? Well, they might, but I didn’t want to bother having a sale. Boxes and boxes of stuff found their way to the Salvation Army. Boxes of craft supplies and fabrics went to two young teachers of my acquaintance. What have you got that you no longer use or want and can box up and donate? Keep good track of some of the better stuff you donate because there’s a nice level of tax deductibility to much of this.
What I do still have are pictures of my stuff. Originally, the photos were taken for household insurance inventory. They proved to be a treasure. I’ve got pictorial records of many of the items I’d collected over the years, of the ways in which I changed the décor of the house depending on what curtains or quilts or crafts I’d made, and, to me, the most treasured: pictures of my books. Most of the books I’d kept had been read two or three times. I’d always felt that just looking at the title on the spine of a favored book brought the whole book back in an instant. Now I can look at the pictures and get that same feeling. If I really need to read it again there’s always the library nearby.
It might not be easy to peddle your unwanted stuff on the street corners of Sun city, and you might want to get rid of that stuff before the next community tag sale. Let’s face it: after the tag sale you’d still have leftover stuff to give away. You might think of selling your stuff on eBay. I did that once: we sold my husband’s charter collection of Fine Woodworking Magazines. It was a pain to have to be available on-line to answer possible questions from potential buyers, and when we did get a buyer we had to find boxes, pack up the collection, schlep it all to the post office, etc.
So, think of Google and these on-line or local resources while you are de-stuffing your house and your life:
Legal web sites - for retention schedules for personal records. Many of us are overwhelmed with paper records we no longer need. Be sure to shred the discards!
Manufacturers web sites - for owners’ manuals for your electronics, tools, and appliances. Who give house room to more unnecessary paper?
Goodwill Industries, The Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, National Furniture Bank - for organizations who will be happy to have your used furniture, clothing, appliances, what-have-you? Many Goodwill depots for your more portable discards are right nearby in Waxhaw and Fort Mill, to name two. Many organizations will arrange pick-ups.
The Del Webb library or our own lending library at the Lake House - for books, CD’s, VCR tapes and DVD’s.
See that? Don’t you feel better already, now that you’ve begun just by giving a bit of thought to paring down your stuff? So, where will you start? Don’t just sit there - go do it!
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