When my wife and I made our retirement move to Silverton about nine years ago, we downsized into a smaller house.

We had lived in our previous home for 25 years and it was a major decision to leave behind. When we first settled into that house, it had seemed huge.

We thought we could never fill up the space, but we did.

However, by the time we moved, the kids were all gone and living on their own. So we decided that just the two of us didn't need the room or the bother of another big house.

We were wrong about that.

Our first clue was the amount of stuff we had to get rid of because we didn't have room in our new place. We had grown into our old house but we had to shrink ourselves to fit in the new one. It was irritation from the start.

I know that some people, by choice or tempermant, actually exist without sentimentality for their possessions. Something new in, something old out.

If an item has not been used for a certain period of time then get rid of it. Eliminate the clutter and simplify your life. There are TV shows about how to do this.

Just the concept makes me shudder, however. Why not call it sterilizing your life and be done with it?

I'm not saying we should live our lives trying to consume others or possess things as status symbols, but I am saying we should not retain our possessions based on some kind of wrong-headed fashionable asceticism.

Instead, recognize why we have certain things and what they mean to us. Keepsakes are stored away for a reason.

I think most people are sentimental enough to hold on to many items that, if judged by other standards, are no longer needed.

For instance, Linda and I have a large shelving unit of photo albums filled with family pictures going back more than 100 years. They are part of us, and we place a high personal value on them.

Also, over the years, I have inherited most of the few remaining earthly effects of my grandparents and other relatives. There is nothing there of any monetary value, but these are personal items that were important to their owners.

I cannot bear to throw them away. The memories they evoke are priceless.

At my age my best years are in the past. Why would I deny that and not want to retain items that help me remember where I came from? Although I'm sure these things would just be clutter to a lot of people.

And how can my wife an I expand our interests without adding to our physical possessions? Just the books we've acquired to feed those interests would fill a room.

Linda sometimes thins her collection, but admittedly, I have a hard time letting go of a book.

Our garage has never held a car, yet it is full to overflowing. As homeowners, we need space for lawn care and house maintenance equipment, winter storage for lawn furniture and a grill. We also have a need for space to absorb sundry spillage from the rest of the house.

And, I have to confess, that mixed in with all this is a lot of stuff that some people might consider junk. I consider it to be inventory in my personal parts warehouse.

Here, I can usually find something that will work for about any home repair or creative project. Some of it I know I will never use, but having it makes me feel good.

Accumulation is insidious, bu the alternative is to stop living, and we are not ready for that. We retired from our jobs but not from life and all of the mess that comes with it.

I just wish we would have bought a bigger house, with bigger rooms, and more of them. Maybe a pole barn out back would be nice, too.

Lee A. Daue lives in Silverton and really enjoys being retired.

Read or Share this story: