When Downsizing Gets Difficult

Downsizing. I’m doing it again. One of my first blog posts was about our efforts to downsize. I even wrote a follow-up when I tried to do something about our sons’ sports trophies.  (No progress on that one – they are all still in our garage!). I am on a first-name-basis with the folks at the Goodwill donation site. I have sold things on Ebay. We still have too much stuff. What do I really need? Certainly much, much less than I think I need! Sounds easy, but it’s overwhelming (Which is why I still have this much stuff!).

We are slowly donating excess furniture. Our sons needed some of it and Goodwill received a lot of it. I need to go through my clothes again and I know I have too much stuff in my kitchen. Now it’s getting serious. I love my kitchen stuff  and I love to bake and cook. I need this stuff. I may only make sugar cookies once or twice a year, but I love that huge box of cookie cutters! That’s a problem with kitchen things. We may not need things often, but when we need them, we NEED them!

Maybe I should break it down. One cabinet at a time. Do I need two sets of Christmas dinnerware? Do I need to keep the old set of everyday dishes because my son may need them when he’s done with school? My husband tells me he prefers paper plates and he’s not just trying to make life easier for me. He actually likes them.

I am holding on to one set of Grandmom’s holiday dishes to pass down to a child but my children are male and single. (imagine how interested they are in this conversation!). The other set is mine and I really like them. I use them every Christmas Eve. That’s it. One meal. Okay, sometimes I use them for a nice meal or two close to Christmas. I know you’re going to tell me to use the entire month of December and enjoy them. Good idea, but see above comment about paper plates. (Never mind that we eat about half of our meals in restaurants or from take-out!) Retirement has made us pretty casual. Our home-cooked meals are often eaten on trays. It works for us.

I have gotten rid of some things. Yup, I’ve gotten rid of my place mats. (Woo Hoo! Progress!) I’ve replaced them with disposable, paper place mats. They are adorable. I have a set with flamingos and one with fish. They match my dishes and are always clean and ready to use. (Please no snarky comments about using disposable stuff). This is a pic from Amazon (affiliate link) to give you an idea what I’m talking about:

I really just use them when we have guests so a package lasts a while and it takes up minimal space. I was even able to find some on sale. But enough about my kitchen. My husband reads my articles and I don’t want him to think there’s any hope that I won’t always have a fully equipped kitchen. On to another room. . . or closet. . .

I have my mom’s costume jewelry. I don’t wear it – it’s not really my kind of thing and I don’t wear much jewelry anyway. It’s not worth anything, but it was my mom’s. I used to admire it as a kid and I often “organized” her jewelry and earrings. My mom died in 1968, which means it‘s been in a box for 50 years. So why do I still have this stuff?

Maybe it’s because not doing anything is easy and I’m apparently a little lazy. If I put it in the back of my closet I don’t have to deal with it. I can pretty much forget about it. There is another reason though. It’s my mom’s and I don’t have much left of her at this point. I don’t remember what she sounded like, there aren’t many pictures (a house fire destroyed much of what we did have) and my dad and brothers are gone. No one left to share mom memories.

This means I’ve got another consideration. I’m the “keeper-of-the-stuff”. I have friends in the same situation. We are the only one left in our family to pass down our history. Maybe our history is just stories. Maybe it is a houseful of stuff, but either way it feels like a responsibility.  I think this is a big reason why we keep stuff. It connects us to our past, our family & friends – our heritage. It’s important, right?

Maybe. Maybe not – at least not for everything. These boxes are taking up precious space and honestly, does it really offer any comfort or offer any real history or insight to my mom? Maybe that’s the question to ask myself. I also have my dad’s Navy coat and hat. I’m not getting rid of it. It feels like a part of my father. Maybe that’s the question I need to ask myself on each item.

Our kids don’t seem to have these issues – MAINLY because all of this stuff is at my house. It won’t become their problem until we’re gone. This brings the next question: why leave a mess of stuff for them? I have dissolved estates, homes and farms. It’s no fun and it’s not easy.

This is the rambling goes on in my head when I try to downsize. What am I going to do with this stuff? We are getting ready to move again and it’s real. I’m actually not too concerned about duplicate kitchen gadgets and dinnerware sets. I can deal with those. It’s the family stuff that makes me either sentimental or guilty.

I need to make some progress. Today I’m going to take the easy road and clean out my refrigerator. It counts as getting rid of stuff and it’s easy because there are expiration dates to help me. Wouldn’t it be easier if my entire household came with an expiration date? (Note to self: add an expiration to everything I buy from now on). Since it doesn’t, I’ll have to deal with my rambling mind and make some decisions.

These are tough decisions. Well, they are tough for me. They seem to come easier to my husband but there’s no way he gets to go through “my” stuff. The scary part is that someone else going through my stuff is exactly what’s going to happen if I don’t deal with it. Now we’re back to that.

I don’t have the answers right now but I do know that my answers may not match the ones you come up with. That’s okay. I will figure it out and I’ll do what is right for me. You will, too. In the meantime, do you think it’s okay to keep mustard with an expiration date of 2015?