An Abundance of Things

I recently discovered a blogger I really like: Scott Dannemiller. I don't know if it is a compliment or an insult to say he thinks like me, but it is what it is. His latest post at "The Accidental Missionary" is called Confessions of a Hoarder. Like Scott, I do not consider myself a hoarder, but having recently moved, I went through a similar situation: what to do with boxes of stuff I haven't used in quite a while.

To say I haven't "used" stuff in "quite a while" is being too kind, disingenuous even. There were things in boxes we moved into the condo 16 1/2 years ago that I have not touched since. Just to give you a sense of reality, there were two sets of legs for TV tables that had broken decades ago which I had planned to reuse on some new tables. I never got to that project. I still have a contraption I made for cold air induction on a truck I haven't owned for ten years; I thought maybe another vehicle would need the treatment. There were cans of stain and varnish long since hardened into uselessness, kept for what reason I know not. And so on.

So our move necessitated picking up each of the many boxes stored in our garage or the storage shed we rented when we moved into the condo (Yes, I have sheds to store my useless stuff.) and putting it in the Suburban to move to storage in our apartment garage or the new storage shed I rented. (That's right: one garage and two storage sheds.) I finally decided it was time to "sort" the stuff and give away or donate whatever I could part with. This is when I discovered I probably do have the hoarder gene. I was an emotional wreck. I could not decide what to do with any of it.

A loving wife and caring friends suggested several methods to determine categories like move, store, donate, dispose. I found it easy to dispose of the cans of solidified varnish (now that I have access to a dumpster where I could "hide" the toxic waste.) On each trip to the new apartment I would toss the contents of a box into the community dumpster and heave a sigh of relief. I began to feel something like a sense of accomplishment or the lifting of a burden; all that stuff I had been carrying around all these years was finally getting off my back. Yet much remains to be sorted, and I am still agonizing.

Since the apartment is only a little more than half the size of our condo, much truly useful stuff also had to be reassigned. The furniture and other accouterments of a homestead no longer fitting our reduced lifestyle went to various mission stores for redistribution, hopefully to meet needs of needy people. We had rented a second storage unit to keep some of the furniture in, but changed our minds and donated most of it and released the unit back to the hoarder universe. This too gave a small sense of satisfaction, yet I kept wondering if  that chair or those nic-nacs wouldn't be missed someday.

I know Jesus said that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things, but the process of moving has revealed to me anew how much my life does revolve around things. Here I am, the owner of not one but two domiciles (we are renting out the expensive condo and living in a cheaper rented apartment.), either of which would be palatial digs to most people in the two-thirds world.  What's worse, I still have six shelf units and the storage loft in the apartment garage full of stuff I felt the need to keep and one remaining rented storage unit that we need to sort.

I have begun to ask myself what I would miss if a fire consumed everything I have in storage. The true answer is very little. Maybe when the temperature gets out of the single digits I will find the emotional courage to do what needs to be done: toss or donate my way to freedom. I have two friends who recently had to go through their parents accumulation when they moved into assisted living; I did it with my Mom's stuff years ago when she died. It was painful. I don't want to put my kids through that. Deep breath; follow Nike's advice: just do it.

I have written the preceding post being of sound mind (ha) in hopes that it will haunt me if I fail to do what I have told myself to do. You are my witnesses.