This Damn House

Parting with stuff, that is. And the Mr. and I have plenty of sweet sorrow to go around!

As I'm digging through deeper and deeper layers of stuff (this morning I found my toaster oven from college!) I often wonder why I kept this stuff, and moreover, why I sometimes have a hard time letting go of it.

A lot of it, as I said before, is because I hate contributing to waste and consumer culture, so I want to pass potentially useful items on to someone who will use them. But that still leaves a substantial body of stuff we have that will never be useful to anyone, ever.

So what's in that body of stuff?

- Mr. TDH and I both have boxes of nostalgia: in my case, papers from grad school, letters from old flames and distant relatives, small stuffed animals and misc. bric-a-brac. In his case, old models of airplanes and cars, Star Trek paraphernalia, fraternity mugs and enough change to cover the GNP of some small third world countries. This stuff we hold on to, I think, because we anticipate some future review of these items will bring us (or our children) pleasure, because they will remind of us times gone and paths taken and not taken.

- There's a set of items (like the toaster oven) that we have because when Mr. TDH and I joined households, we were not yet married, and therefore, I think, still keeping in mind the possibility that in the future, we may again find ourselves furnishing our own domiciles. So duplicate kitchenware and coffee tables ended up stashed in the attic, and later (when it became clear that a) we'd be together for the long haul, and b) even if that turned out not to be the case, neither of us would be wanting to live like college students) we were too busy to deal with it, and it was subsequently forgotten.

- Then there's stuff to which we are emotionally attached simply because of inertia. That is, we've been lugging that item around so damn long, we can't imagine not lugging it through the next move! An example would be a little metal file box I used to store photos in. Back in the day, all my photos fit in the 1.5 cubic feet in there. Now I'm a bit of a photobug (all my friends are now laughing at this understatement) and my photos and associated equipment couldn't fit in a box ten times that size. I have no idea where the box came from, it has no nostalgia value, but...I've always had that box and I've always had photos in it, and even though I really couldn't care less about the box...it's just...there.

The bar I'm trying to set for whether to keep or toss this stuff is: is whatever use or pleasure I anticipate I or my kids will get out of it in the future enough to outweigh the space it takes to store and effort it will take to pack and move.

It's shocking how much I've been carrying around for years that doesn't rise above that bar.