Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thoughts about Hoarding and about Letting Things Go...

I had pulled out a box of depression glass, I'd had stored in my garage, in preparation for a yard sale last month. Only a couple of pieces sold, so the rest went back into the box until another sale a week ago. I just finished rewrapping the leftover items to send to the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store and happened to look at the date on the newspaper I'd had them wrapped in. It was June of 2004, exactly a year after my mom had passed away. These items were from her home and had been packed away for most of the intervening years. I'd pulled them out one other time a few years back for a sale, but when nothing sold, placed them into the same box wrapped in the same newspapers and returned them to the garage. They hadn't been enjoyed by anyone for over 11 years. That's what happens when grief hits and you can't let go of things, or if you're just one of those people who hoards things thinking you will use them some day.  It's really a shame nobody has been able to enjoy the pieces all these years.

I was able to sell a few pieces in the sale last Saturday. From what was left, I selected two milkshake glasses I love and two small bowls, which match my dishes, and placed them in my china hutch. They are pieces I will use and enjoy. The remaining dishes are packed up for their trip to St. Vincent's. It's time for some other bargain hunter, like my mother was, to find them and take them home to cherish.

2 comments:

Donna said...

Oh my...this hit home!
I NEED to do the same with my Mom's stuff...she died in '96!
Neither of my kids wants any of it...
hughugs

Donna said...

I have boxes that we packed away 5 years ago now, when we sold our former cottage and was hurrying up to move into a rental while we built. We still have about a dozen boxes in our storage room, filled with antiques that can't fit in our current home. Going through that storage room clutter is a task that needs to be done, and I was going to tackle it as soon as I quit the contracting job. Ah, and just a month later is when we found out that DH had pancreatic cancer. So the task remains undone. And it will remain so for quite a while to come.