Throw Your Stuff Away

I helped someone move today, an elderly woman from church who is going into a retirement community, while two of her daughters move into her house.

The organization of the whole project seemed rather random, with no one having a particular vision what things were going to go, in what order, or whether they would fit. This mirrored the contents of her house, as what items had been lovingly kept and stored in closet or basement seemed to bear little relation to utility.

I don't want whoever has to go through my stuff when I die or downsize to curse me, particularly as it will most probably be my children, for whome I have some fondness. Looking through all the lovely sentimental junk will be a poignant and bittersweet experience for them - for about an hour. After that, it will descend into hours or days of wild-eyed irritation on their part, including recriminations against each other, interspersed with snarls at my grandchildren, yet unborn, who have the misfortune to be part of the project and commit sins of inattention or boredom. It seems an unfortunate way to be remembered. Eccentricity is all quite charming in theory, but when you have to actually deal with the idiosyncracies of others, rather than just read about them in books, it takes a bit out of you emotionally.

I also note a downside of increased longevity. When people regularly went to their final reward at the biblical threescore years and ten, their children were still relatively whole and hale (a little etymological joke there. ed.) and could manage bending over to move rugs or get a better purchase on the bottom of bureaus. Now that we regularly make it to fourscore and more, the Chosen Descendants are themselves in their fifties, with physical limitations of their own. So this is going to be great, then, in about fifty years, when few couples have more than one child and many have none, trying to find someone who has four operative limbs who remembers being related to Mrs. Brown.

If you are over forty, just throw stuff away. Even valuable stuff. Even things you are sure your children would be deeply insulted if you treated callously. Even things that make you cry.