Stuff...

I have no idea which is worse, remembering a painful past or ignoring an excruciating present. I do know what they have in common, and that is rubbish. I also know that moving on isn’t as much about taking a few steps forward as it is about being willing to untangle and the cruelly uproot whatever’s holding us back.

As I look around my office at the stacks of books on the floor waiting to be reshelved; the piles of file folders containing the years of research of the past lives of my ancestors, magazines, clothes, empty prescription bottles (good to put more stuff in), slippers, shoes, piles of fabric sorted by color and the unfinished quilting projects, it’s difficult to believe that all this is surrounding the working space I have created for myself.

My closets are crammed so full that I need Houdini’s help to organize them. My drawers don’t just hide my disorder; they hoard it. I pick up something to put it away in its proper place and look around in appalled curiosity because I set it back down who knows where.

I think of “stuff” as being co-dependant. We allow it to accumulate and it enables us to stay stagnant. Sometimes it keeps us in an unhealthy situation that we should have dealt with years ago. Our “stuff” adapts to its surroundings and like little chameleons it adopts the color, shape, and texture and settles in for the long haul in closets, drawers and under beds, and not likely to be a trip to the landfill.

I’d be the first to admit my home needs an exorcism; then I would need help with the methodical task of letting go of all my stuff. I could always justify my hoarding by saying that it makes me happy and keeps me safe. I love it and it loves me. I only need to lay my hands on that box of scrap fabric or that winter jacket I hadn’t worn since I left colder climate for my mind to start screaming, “You can’t get rid of me!” I touch old letters and photographs and I am bound by them insisting I hear their stories over and over again. “We’re family, you can’t get rid of us!” Eventually, our possessions take on a life of their own and our “stuff” embodies what is outworn or unfulfilled in our lives and that’s why it’s so hard to give it away.

A day came recently that my “stuff’s” life with me is over and we both need to move on. Move is a powerful word and movement is life and/or the beginning of reality. I thought about the time many years ago that I had to sort through my mother’s possessions after she passed and wondered why she would keep such “stuff”. I know, because I have inherited that hoarding gene and it’s time for me to break the cycle. I’m now separating the guilt stashes from the legitimate ones because I would rather my children not have dry eyes sorting memories instead of messes.