Sorting Through the Memories

If you’ve read my blog before, you know we are going to try to downsize our life. Starting with the “stuff” hiding in our closets and drawers and even in plain sight. I took a couple of days off this week to get started (OK, I will admit I had high expectations of how much I would get done in one week!). My expectations were not reasonable at all, that’s all I will say on that subject. Memories got in the way.

I started with my den/office since I knew it would be the worst room (the garage will be the next worst!). Floor to ceiling bookshelves, an endless storage closet under the stairs and drawers full of craft stuff makes for slow going. Here’s why:

Books

I love books. I am a reader—my mom used to tell me I would go blind reading from the light in the hall.  I hated being forced to turn off my bedroom light just as I reached a good part in my Nancy Drew mystery. ? I have spent a good deal of money on beautiful hardback books in my life and my shelves were full of them. Bonus: I did not really go blind!

However, once I have read a book, I’m done with it. There are too many books in this world  for me to waste time re-reading one I have already enjoyed. Besides, these days, much as I said I wouldn’t, I have turned to e-books for my reading pleasure. I know, I know, I feel like a traitor sometimes. I still love libraries and bookstores, but it is so much easier to take a book with me on my phone. I once spent 4 hours in the ER. Which was perfectly fine because I had a fully charged phone and a really good book to read!

Needless to say, I will have a tableful of books at my yard sale in a couple of weeks.

Crafts

I guess I should look at my craft supplies like Rory does his screws and nails. He is always sure he may need that one so he saves all of them. I am sure I will find a use for every bead, tiny ball of yarn or stamp—so I save them. I have found that  sharing them with my granddaughters makes the  letting go of some of them easier.

But some of them were just bad purchases or odds and ends, so I will also have a craft table at the yard sale. ?

Photos and Mementos

Here’s where the time went this week—looking through pictures and mementos I did not even know I had. Remembering special days and parties and Christmases and vacations. Of  thinking “Lord, look how small they were, how young I was, how beautiful my mom looked.” Not a quick or easy task, going through pictures and mementos. Not easy to get rid of pictures, even when I have 6 copies of one picture of our family in Hawaii.

One way to make it easier is to digitize them all. I am using a company that will send me a box to fill and they will put them all on a memory stick for me. This way, I can organize them on my own and make sticks for each of our children to keep. No more dusty, ancient photo albums and boxes of random memories.

Random thoughts on this process:

• I threw away my high school yearbooks. I never look at them. I was a military brat and I have never seen any of those people since high school, nor attended a reunion. Why keep them?
• Am I the only person who saves greeting cards from people? Why?!? Gone. And we need to stop spending so much money on them—the dollar store sells them…..
• I found a homemade card my brother made for my mom when he was in kindergarten. Why I have it, I don’t know, but since he lives near me—it will be his memento to deal with soon.
• I am passing on to my children their own memory boxes of their stuff and pictures. Lucky for me (maybe not for them), they will all be here in 3 weeks for a family party!
• I am saving a few wedding items (napkins, wine glasses, etc.) for our 50^th anniversary in 10 years. Call me sentimental…..
• The hardest mementos are those dealing with my mom and dad. My dad’s medals are all in a frame on the wall and I have no doubt that my sons will want them when I am gone. An antique mirror belonging to my great grandmother sits on my dresser and my daughter’s will make sure it finds a home.
• But I have the simple brown jacket my mom was wearing the last time I saw her alive, as well as a shirt I made for her. What will they want with those? Nothing. It will not mean anything to them because there is no memory attached to those items for them. I will donate them to Hope House and someone else will get their use.
• I also found a letter I wrote to my mother only a week before she died. I never sent it because she was so sick already. I have read it and cried. Rory read it and misted up, and I will let my kids read it when they are here in a couple of weeks. Then, I will burn it and tuck the memory of my beloved mother into my heart once again.

Lessons Learned

This process is enlightening. Looking at mementos and saved “stuff”, I realized that these only really had memories for me or Rory. Our children would someday be cleaning out our house and looking at this stuff and saying  ”why did they save this?”  I know, because at Hope House we see these children all the time, bringing in their parent’s belongings, including items that they are baffled about.

At what is already a difficult time for a family, adding the real work of going through a house full of a lifetime of memories is cruel. Let them have their own memories of you and your family. Pass down important mementos while you are alive or specify somewhere what is important and why. Share with your children and grandchildren while you are here to interact and ask questions. Maybe write a book—more on that in a later post!

How are you doing at downsizing? Have I inspired you to start the process? Grab some boxes and some labels and get going! Share any tricks you have in the comments, please!

Feeling lighter in my amazing grace filled life.