I spent the weekend trying to get rid of stuff. I initially thought about selling stuff for beer money, but don’t want to deal with the hassle and should probably drink less beer. I made a trip to the pet shelter and Goodwill, and several trips to the “curb” where I put the garbage. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not sure I made much of a dent relative to the time it took to go through things. I may have gotten rid of two or three boxes worth of books (but I still have 8 boxes). I may have gotten rid of a bag of clothing. I may have purged a box of random junk but still have others, etc.
There’s an emotional aspect to the purging. I think I need to do it in waves. People usually do these things by creating piles: sell, donate, toss, keep. I don’t have many things to sell. I get very hung up between donate and toss (I tend to think everything should be re-used). I probably need to give a second look on what I keep and ask myself (after some time has passed) really? This happens a lot with things that were given to me as gifts. In some cases, I know I’m holding on to the object as a reminder of the person and not because of the object or its usefulness in my life.
As an example, I have a set of whisky stones. They were a gift from my ex-brother-in-law. We don’t really talk anymore. There’s no reason for the not talking. My ex and I are on cordial enough terms that we could talk… we just don’t. Adults are strange like that. He gave me (or us) the stones as a gift. They’re actual stones made of granite, rounded and smoothed. You’re supposed to freeze them and use them to chill whisky without diluting it. Literally “on the rocks.” I don’t drink whisky. They found their way to the toss pile – but then I thought of how few objects I own that would make me think of this person. I thought about the time he and I had martinis at the Algonquin Hotel taking in the literary atmosphere. I moved them to the keep pile and started a poem about the sentiment.
On the practical side, I hate the idea of throwing away things that still have utility. I have a brand new gel memory foam mattress that I bought when my daughter visited me in Memphis. I think she slept on it 6 or 7 times over the course of her two visits. It’s been bagged and stored in the finished basement ever since. It’s a good mattress and seems like it should be put to use as opposed to sent to the landfill. On Facebook Marketplace, there are dozens of mattresses available – I can’t imagine anyone is going to take it off my hands. I don’t care too much about the lost cost – I hate being so wasteful.
Getting rid of these things makes me want to be more mindful of what I acquire – makes me want to live a more stripped-down life with fewer material objects. This process of purging also has me looking at all of the objects in the house with a hint of dread for the day when I’ll have to deal with all that is left behind.