Well it looks like 593 Discovery Trail will eventually be going on the market and I am gearing up for the mother of all yard sales Here’s my perspective on letting go ..,
While browsing Facebook recently I saw a post of someone looking to find anyone who might care about another man’s memorabilia. He had bought a storage unit and its contents and thought someone might be interested in the military memorabilia that he’d found. My first thought was, “Buddy, if that stuff was in a storage locker, guess what? No one wanted it when it went in there and no one will want it now!” Cynical? Just a bit. But sometimes reality hits you like that.
When JT passed away there was a LOT of things left to deal with. Actual, tangible, pick up and move things. After a colossal yard sale, the things that were culled by the kids before the sale and much of what was left unsold came into the basement for safe keeping. You know… just until the kids got their own places and came running back exultant that all these things could be repatriated, displayed and viewed lovingly until the end of time. (Yes that was me being cynical again). But to be fair to them I know it took time and distance to give them perspective on what was worth keeping and what they’d really want to carry forward into their lives. At 18 and 22 no one has the emotional maturity to deal with such a colossal loss AND the aftermath of dealing with his estate and huge collection of belongings. And I was more than happy to help them in any way I could. Space in the basement was the very least I could do. But it was foreshadowing of what was yet to come!
When P moved here he brought everything from his place AND emptied out the basement of a friend who had been kind enough to let him store things there. He had moved several times and had reduced his belongings each time but with three children and a full apartment… there was a lot of things. Some of his furniture displaced some of mine. And all of that went into… you guessed it… the basement.
Not a year later Mom passed away unexpectedly. By now you know the drill. The basement.
There are photos here somewhere (maybe in the basement?) of what a state it was down there. Boxes. Rubbermaid totes, bags, shelves overflowing, furniture heaped up. Slowly but surely over the following years most of it got sorted. Some of it found new homes as I had hoped. There were a few yard sales and a few truck loads went off to the thrift stores. We moved a lot of stuff to Inuvik at the GNWT’s expense and it was all sold or donated when we left to come home. And sadly a lot of what was in the basement inevitably went to the landfill.
The basement space is now functional… barely.
Yet there is still a ton of things in this house that as I age I wonder what will become of it all. My grandmother’s teapot … she died in 1931 so quite possibly it could be 100 years old. The lovely little cup and saucer that the ladies of Jamestown gave my dad when he joined the army in 1950. My Willow Tree collection not nearly as old, but well loved. The toys I kept for 30 years so that my grandchildren could play with them, not to mention JT’s childhood toys, 60+ years old AND some old toys that are guaranteed to date back to the 1930’s. My sewing room chock full of fabric, patterns… machines. And don’t get me started on the china, bric a brac, framed pictures, books and photo albums. That nobody wants.
Yes I have a lot if stuff. But the point is I am setting the scene for you of what everyone of us will go through as we age. Some will have far more than me and others will have less. But all of us will have to either whittle down our own possessions before moving into senior accommodations or we will leave one heck of a mess for others to deal with once we are gone.
I started to try and give away a few things recently and overwhelmingly the response was NO THANKS we have enough. And who am I to say, “No dear, you really must take possession of these things.” These mementos. These treasures… these family heirlooms… this junk. So I am left with two choices, donate or toss. Sad. But whom am I to expect my family to become keepers of the past? Why should anyone clutter up their homes to appease my sense of nostalgia? And WHY do I find it so hard to let it go?
Our parents’ generation knew hardships, shortages and economic woes. My mom told me of the time her stepfather took the moulding off the kitchen floor because he remembered dropping a nickel there and he needed to post a letter. A dear friend of mine tells the story that when his family was being resettled from the islands in Bonavista Bay during the ‘60’s how his job as an eight year old was to straighten out the nails that his father had pulled out of the walls as he dismantled their house to move it as a pile of lumber to its new home. My grandmother turned coats. Took coats apart seam by seam, stitch by stitch. Turned the fabric over where it was less worn, less knobby and re-sewed the coat so that another child in the family could get another year’s wear from it. Flour sacks were recycled into dish towels. Plastic bags were kept and washed and dried for re-use. Every family and I mean EVERY FAMILY grew, gathered, raised, fished and hunted their own food to the full extent that they were capable of doing. Every home had a junk drawer full of bits and bobs… just in case it might be needed and nothing was ever thrown away. Did their forced frugality get passed down to us through their stories, our observations or through our shared experiences? Is that why we cling to our possessions? Is that why there’s a little hoarder living inside most of us?
And then there’s the part of us that detests the materialistic society we have become. Every year we decry the senseless spending to fill the living room with brightly coloured packages full of plastic at Christmas. We spend thousands on bikes that are hardly ridden, swingsets that the neighbour’s kids enjoy more than our own do, the latest video games, Tonkas ( are they a thing anymore!?) collections of the latest doll craze, Barbie dream houses, iPhones and tablets … and on and on it goes! Seems like collectively our motto has become, “Bigger, Better and Out Buy the Next Guy”.
If you were born between 1955 and 1965 you were born at the end of the Baby Boom and we are referred to as the Jones Generation. You know… keeping up with the Joneses; born well after the WW2 ended we don’t know a world without TV, electricity and central heating, we don’t know what rationing is, and during our childhood there were no health emergencies such as polio or TB like other generations before us had endured. Golden we were. Until the 70’s and 80’s hit. Inflation, wage and price controls, job cuts, oil shortages , decades of stagnant wages and sky high interest rates. Just as we were finishing school it started and followed us as we bought homes, started families and got established in our careers. And in Newfoundland just as the economy started to improve elsewhere the fishery collapsed throwing thousands of people out of work and we have spent the last 30 years trying to keep home and hearth together.
What did all this do to our psyches? Hard to say with any definite answers, but is it possible that we thought that buying things for our children was proof we were providing them with security? The TV in the bedroom, latest game consoles, the quad by the door, brand name clothing… And is it possible we are perpetuating this longing for our golden childhood even into our grandchildren’s lives? And let’s face it, as much as we might try and limit our spending, social media is in our faces each and every day reminding us that there are people we know, taking the trips, building the houses, buying the cars and doing so much “better” than we are. Even if you’re inclined to live a simplistic lifestyle your use of any form of media… social or mass …bombards you with how the rest of the world is “getting by”. What’s that saying? We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like… ouch.
Life has taught me many lessons. But it has also left me questioning so much of what I thought was important in life; rules I thought I had to follow and what happiness was made of. I now know it wasn’t the shoes of every colour to match the dresses we had to have. It wasn’t the steady parade of furniture, wallpaper and decorating changes. Nor was it piles of gifts surrounding the Christmas tree. Oh to be able to do it all over again, knowing then what I know now!
A few years ago I showed E the real estate listing of a completely renovated house just a few doors down from her house in CB. She handed it back to me and said, “You like shiny. I don’t.” When I grow up I want to be just like her. And that’s not cynical… not one little bit.
So as the season of yard sales starts to shift into high gear, I wish you well in your quest to de-clutter AND try and resist the urge to buy more. Your children will thank you for it! And in the meantime I will be here with all my stuff and lots of Love in Lethbridge!
