Until you have been involved in moving or downsizing for yourself or a loved one, the cycle of stuff may not be at the top of your radar.

This is about my ninth time since 2000.

Mom out of – my teenage and college – home. Mom out of assisted living.

In-laws out of house. In-laws out of senior living apartment.

House-wide carpeting fiasco times three.

Basement flood from Hurricane Florence involving my stuff, our former video business’s stuff, mom’s stuff, and my in-laws’ stuff.

Lots of stuff.

And now, joyfully, an evisceration of the guest room and office to provide a more welcoming atmosphere for both adult children and spouse/significant others to visit.

No one sleeps on the floor!

Repaint. New window treatments. Install two queen-sized Murphy beds so I can enjoy the space when there is no company. Blessing my daughter all the way in thanks for getting this started for me!

Build it and they will come!

All good. Can’t wait until we can have our little family reunion – once travel and getting together is once again safe.

In the meantime, there’s STUFF all over my house. Stuff waiting to be put back IF it survives the purging process. Stuff hoping for a new niche so it can easily be found and utilized – especially in my soon-to-be christened craft room/sometimes guest room.

This is not a post about the wonders of Marie Kondo, a Japanese organizing consultant, and letting go of stuff. We all need to do that, for sure.

But what is becoming so abundantly clear to me is that I’ve spent a significant portion of my life chasing or pushing STUFF around. Not being a great or better person. Not doing good deeds to bring joy, laughter, and hope to a troubled soul. Not inspiring others to greatness.

No. I’ve been pushing around a mountain of STUFF. Gives new meaning to the image of Sisyphus and the Rock.

My hourglass of life is not as full as it used to be. How many more grains of my limited and unknown quantity of precious sand do I want to devote to STUFF?

Clearly, not much.

So, this is going to be a purge that will, hopefully, become a blessing to my kids so they won’t have to push my stuff around too much after I’m gone. There’s that loving preparedness and consideration again.

If you are in the throes of getting or wanting more STUFF – better STUFF – because the old STUFF wasn’t good enough… Think twice. If you get new STUFF, make sure to throw out/give away/sell the old STUFF before the new STUFF even darkens the door.

In terms of clothing, I try to give away two for every new one I bring in. We have all over-bought in the past or have overkept while waiting for the size to come back. Move on. Someone could really use that item of clothing right now. Give it a happy home that fits.

Here’s a cycle of stuff that may sound familiar:

Young children want stuff. When they get older, they want stuff for older kids, but the little kid stuff is still there. Then they get cool stuff when they are teens. Moving out to college, they take only the best recent stuff, leaving the old stuff with Mom and Dad.

Twenty-somethings get jobs and can afford entry-level adult stuff. Thirty-somethings can afford to get better stuff which is layered on top of the old stuff their young children get to use.

As the forty-somethings age, their children get stuff. When the kids move out, the parents get better stuff that will last.

Fifty-somethings tweak the stuff their college kids get and help start them on their path of independence with the better stuff they once had. Parents need the ultimate stuff – now.

In the meantime, the parents are gathering stuff their own parents had that joins the childhood stuff their kids grew up with.

In their sixties and seventies, parents are trying to downsize their stuff, but none of the kids want the china, silver, or furniture. What to do with all those framed pictures of young children? How about the baseball trophies?

In our eighties and nineties, we may lose our stuff or not recognize our stuff at all. Too soon, our kids get our stuff.

And so, it goes. The rotation of stuff.

I’m going to try to sort through my stuff as quickly as possible, recognizing that needing something “someday” does not mean I should keep it.

Create a craft/guest room functional for my needs and quickly converts to a restful space for company. Create an office/second guest room that will inspire my writing and speaking engagements designed to uplift and support others, and will easily convert to a restful and uncluttered space for company.

Life is about the experience, the journey, the LOVE … not the stuff.

In health,

Deidre

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