Downsizing is fraught with decisions. What to keep, what to sell, to give away, to pitch out. Professional organizers have all sorts of rules of thumb about decision making but I found this weekend that the pointer finger works better: this one stays, that one goes…and let my husband move it!
But, really, it’s the heart that drives our decisions, isn’t it? That imperfectly handmade pottery bowl can hold loose change and safety pins forever as far as I’m concerned because I dearly love the person who gave it to me. On the other hand, I don’t need to keep four corkscrews even if all of them were gifts too.
Comedian George Carlin had a riff on “stuff” and noted that a house is just a place to keep your stuff. I now have a whole room full of stuff that will be eliminated in stages, beginning with a garage sale later this month and ending with the garbage man prior to moving. (To my Facebooks friends, that’s in addition to the stuff I posted for sale on FB.)
Lest you think that I made Bill do all the work, I kept track of the 363 steps I took from attic to basement and back, trying to put it all in one place for this photo. Better than a Stairmaster workout! Sad to admit, there’s still much, much more to add to the pile.
All these one-time treasures soon to be trash. I can’t help but contrast this to something that two guys named Matt and Luke quoted about stuff: “The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.” [The Message] Where do I most want to be?
One disappointing note of news: the rush to rid myself of stuff is gone. Our buyer backed out of the sale today. On the bright side, there’s another chance that the right buyer will love the contingency: Ocie (Outside Cat).
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