I have spent my entire life accumulating. My exception to this statement was when, for a short period of time, I lived a frugal, austere life in rebellion against society and its excesses. Remember the 60’s? My youthful collections included ball bearings (go figure), stamps, coins (my grandfather said I was a good numismatist and I held on to the moniker for a long time to wow my friends) and the very educational Mad magazine. Interest waxed and waned throughout the years and most items ended up in a box or drawer somewhere. True accumulation came with marriage. Someone else had stuff too! Plus, the ultimate insult came when our parents asked us to get all of our crap out of their attics, basements, and bedrooms. Ok, we could find space for our cherished items, but when the babies started to come along, things began to heap. Buy a larger home, they said, get more square footage, they said. Made sense to me. That happened six times in our married life. Each move was to a bigger home. Ovation finally broke the insane progression. The castles, finally, were in our rearview mirror.
My wife and I enjoyed a long life of perusing antique shops, estate sales, and local garage sales. We started to collect Wizard of Oz books and memorabilia (what else, my wife’s name is Dorothy). Along the way we accumulated enough other books to rival a public library. Our collection of over 180 pieces of carnival glass, of course, needed display cases and shelving. “More rooms!” I shouted.
Late relatives, of course we all can relate, were another source of property. Who could turn down Grandma’s shell collection, Grandpa’s wood working tools, and lots and lots of linen, photos, and the always wonderful salt and pepper shaker collection. Multiply that process 4-5 times in your lifetime and that is a lot of stuffed cardboard boxes set somewhere in the house. I know, you’ll get to them soon! Those folks (May they rest in peace) were not the only source of, shall I say junk? I was just as complicit. This past year we found bank statements and canceled checks going back to 1982 (you never know when you need to put your hands on that information), college class papers and text books, and the usual scrapbooks that were put together during our early youth. We discovered 6 boxes of items that were to have been sent to Goodwill about 4 years before. Of course we went through them! There might be a misplaced treasure that was mistakenly discarded.
When the decision was finally made to make Ovation our new home, first and foremost on our mind was how to decide what in our existing home would have a continued life in a smaller space. A daunting task lay ahead and we had to be brutal, for lack of a better word, with our possession accumulation. The attempt to ignore was short lived. Reality was in our face.
It is unimaginable how much “stuff” can be squirreled away in every nook and cranny of a home. How did it get that way? The answer is simple. When you don’t know what to do with something, keep it. When you will never use an item again, keep it. When something is broken or a piece on it is missing, keep it. When you paid more for something than you would ever be able to sell it for, keep it. If you are sure your beloved antique will someday make headlines on the Antique Roadshow, keep it. I had enough tools from my grandfather and father to outfit the finest machine shop. I was sure the welding supplies and drill press bits would be important parts of my retirement plan. Dorothy was much more meticulous with her treasures. Her procedure of evaluation was simple. First, should I keep it, secondly, what is it and what does it do, and thirdly was it really ours?
The process began. We “surfed the net” for downsizing information, read articles on retirement, and talked to others who had taken the plunge. We were told not to agonize over possessions because when we were gone our children would have no problem “taking care of our stuff.” We did take time to look at what was essential for our new home, what hadn’t seen the light of day for years, and what I borrowed from a neighbor months ago and needed to return. First call went to our kids. They needed some major appliances for their businesses, furniture and beds for houses as they were upsizing, (little do they know what is in store for them), and some pictures and knick-knacks they wanted. The toil of a huge yard, fruit trees, grape arbors, garden plots and the annual leaf accumulation of 8 maple trees was over. Garden equipment and many assorted tools went to Habitat for Humanity and other groups that restored and distributed mowers, rototillers, and trimmers. Goodwill, Saint Vincent DePaul’s, neighbors, and friends were involved in the dispersal process. Someone suggested we pack up items that hadn’t quite cleared the ‘stay or go’ category. I thought I would try that. Bad idea! I have two medium sized cartons somewhere in the garage stuffed full of “we must keep these and decide later” items. I wonder if Ovation is planning an annual garage sale. I’ll be ready! We used a local auction house, and finally the ultimate feeding frenzy, the garage sale! Signs that read “Moving Sale” and “Everything Must Go,” brought some enthusiasm, but when we filled the $1.00 table with the slightly used merchandise, we had ourselves a party.
The movers did a wonderful job in getting us to Ovation at Oak Tree, but the real heroes were myself and my wife for plowing through the process and accepting our success of the entire episode.
We are strangely free from the weight of a lifetime of needing to be surrounded by possessions. What we have in our new home is what we need. Why didn’t we do this years ago? Ovation hadn’t been developed yet, silly.
Left To Write 