Keeping Stuff
Why do we keep stuff? I’m uncluttering my life - still post Big D, still finding X’s jackets, still returning his family’s photos to him - and so today I tackled the red room. That room in our house that was red when we bought it and I immediately turned it into the baseball room since I was an employee at a Major League Baseball Team. You know, red and white and blue, so American League.
Now it’s slowly transforming into my office and a space for J and I to get our work done and also to relax and read. And its walls are finally the perfect place for all of my theatre and concert posters since I gave X the awesome baseball lithographs. I kept the autographed baseballs and bats. Bad girl.
So I hit this closet today. This is the closet that everyone has one of in their house. Mine contains the following:
- out of season shoes hanging in one of those cheesy but functional over the door hanging things.
- Christmas wreath
- fall wreath (that is now hanging on the front door even though it’s 90 degrees outside
- a huge winter coat - bought by Mama in Montana - that I wore when I worked at that MLB team and rode my bike to work b/c my Dad had disowned me and cut me off and had my Jeep reposesed. Ah, the good old character building days.
- Nicole Miller prom dress
- kilts
- antique linens
- white Ralph Lauren turtleneck
- 6 cans of propane
- the ‘valuable’ breakable Christmas stuff
- beautiful plaid quilt that X and I bought for our 2nd? anniversary - the cotton anniversary
- white high school graduation gown (we all wore the same style, the same white picture hats)
- my mother’s uniform blazer from her high school
- my uniform blazers from my high school - lower classman and Senior blazer
- air pump
- mattress from J’s crib. It was $99.
- gift bags and tissue paper. Mostly recycled.
- an ancient Samsonite suitcase
Why do we keep it all? I have kept that turtleneck because it has the polo on it. Why? I haven’t worn it, ever, that I can recall. The dresses I’ll never fit in again, despite their timelessness. When was I a size 6, exactly? That last semester of senior year when I quit eating to get attention? Yes, that’s right.
I opened the ancient Samsonite and initially thought it was yet another collection of my mother’s kilts and other Scottish heritage things that she kept all of her life. But, no. It was Grandma’s stuff. She was so tiny when she was so old. And she had a beautiful collection of silk scarves and leather gloves that don’t fit me. Each scarf is gorgeous and I played with some of them for a few minutes. But what do I do with the rest of it? Do I take the suitcase with her old lady raincoat and leather gloves that don’t fit to the local collection place? Do I restuff the suitcase and put it back into the closet I’m trying to clean? What do I do with the kilts? Why do we do this to ourselves?
I’m girl-less. I have a boy. And a fast fading reproductive system. So why do I have the kilts? Why is there one so cute and so perfect for a 2 year old girl? Why do I feel badly about the urge to toss the Samsonite? What is it about our mothers and grandmothers that haunt us into keeping their crap for them? For us? For our unborn girls? For our never-to-be born girls?
I’m trying to unclutter. Physically. Emotionally. But it’s still hard to just get rid of the stuff without the guilt.
I wish I could donate away that crib mattress. I wish I could let go of the 2nd baby dream.
In the mean time, I’ll get up, turn up the music, and push through this closet and its memories and transition it to our camping gear closet - looking forward to J’s and my future - our new Jeep (2012?), camping, running, sports, hiking, and playing. Today I’m looking to the future fun and our collective dreams while I try to quit keeping all of this stuff.
