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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Tidy Tuesday - Our stuff is not us.

Many years ago, my grandmother was getting ready to move in with one of her daughters, she asked me to come over to her house and pick anything that I wanted.  Of all her belongings, I chose two cookie sheets and three mixing spoons.  Odd choices I know, but I think of my grandmother whenever I use them, which is often.

More recently, I had the same experience with my mother.  She could no longer take care of herself nor her home and was moving in with my sister.  She too asked me to take anything I wanted.  I told her that all I wanted was copies of the family pictures, not even the originals.  To me, my mom wasn't in her stuff.  My mom is in my memories and in my heart.  I don't need her stuff to remind me of her.

How often we forget that our stuff is not us and we are not our stuff.  Our stuff is just that...stuff.  True, some things have sentimental value and are treasured for reasons known only to the owner.  But most stuff either serves a function or takes up valuable space that could be used in better ways.

It's so easy to look at other people's stuff and be objective about whether it should be kept or tossed.  But with our own stuff it's not so easy.   I have been cleaning out my garage and finally tackled five large plastic bins containing a collection that I've had most of my adult life.  I no longer have any interest in keeping up the collection or adding to it and about three years ago, I moved the entire collection to the garage.  Obviously, they serve no purpose packed away in the garage.  I know I'll never display them.  But, being objective and getting rid of many of them was more difficult than I thought.  They have little monetary value.  My children aren't interested in the collection.  Most of them have no sentimental value.  Yet, they were still hard to part with.

We all have to remember that we can't keep everything that comes into our lives.  At some point, we have to say goodbye to the baby crib and the baby clothes.  We can only keep so much of our children's artwork.  We can't even keep the beloved minivan that took us on so many adventures. They (and many other things) served their purpose but they aren't our loved ones.  Our loved ones are what we should treasure...not our stuff.


  1. Spoken like a true historian, without academic footnotes. Wise words!

    1. As a historian, you're probably cringing when I say not to keep everything. The way I see it, the world doesn't need a museum or shrine dedicated to me and my stuff :)