"Big house, big car, back seat, full bar.
Houseboat won't float. Bank won't tote the note.
Too much stuff. There's just too much stuff.
It'll hang you up, dealing with too much stuff."--(from a song by) Delbert McClinton
Last week the NYT ran an article titled When Possessions Lead to Paralysis, which was about the problems some older people have with managing what they've accumulated over a lifetime as their needs change. The article's tagline is "Can the sheer volume of an elder's possessions prevent him from making necessary transitions?"
One issue the article addressed hit home with me, and it is a dilemma many people face: what to do with their treasures when they must give them up? Often there is no one who will appreciate the value of the things they see as important, there is no one suitable to pass their stuff on to. This dilemma is particularly painful when combined with a forced disposing of cherished possessions in order to downsize into a lifestyle of increasing deterioration and dependency. Very difficult transitions, and primarily what the article was discussing.
It is a worthwhile read, full of things to think about in any stage of life. As far as my personal situation goes, the problem of suitable heirs for our collection is one that hasn't been satisfactorily resolved despite years of mulling the problem over. Decades of careful treasure collecting in jeopardy of auction or yardsale liquidation, or (shudder!) a trip to the landfill...
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My mother died a year ago and I inherited all her possessions, so the issue hasn't been just an abstract one for me. My mother was a collector, and her stuff included an incredible array of things I can use and appreciate, and in many cases, treasure. On the other hand, dealing with the sheer volume of this stuff has been overwhelming and lifestyle-altering. My mother had several rooms full of things--and that's a whole lot of volume. Since her death our house has been filled with slowly shrinking stacks of boxes and piles lining the walls, several stacks deep. The going through, sorting, weeding out, and assimilating what we want into our stuff, has been slow going.
The first few months were especially sluggish, because the grief I felt when confronted with my mother's things was so raw that discarding anything was painful. So a few piles got sorted into smaller piles, but overall there wasn't much progress.
trying to sort through some of the cookbooks last Fall...thankfully the doors they covered are rarely used
After a few months, my perspective shifted to a calmer and more realistic way of seeing her things, and I was able to make some decisions about what should stay and what should go. The pace increased substantially and we can see the progress, but at present there is still much work to be done. After adding her things to ours, we often then need to find a different, larger storage area for that category, and all that figuring where to put it and then shifting things around takes time. But we are on a roll, we are making steady progress toward regaining our living space and having my mother's stuff either stored or integrated into daily life, where it can be used and appreciated.
And "used and appreciated" is exactly the outcome my mother wanted, and I think she was always confident I would be able to provide that when the time came. My mother was the sixth of nine children, born in the early '30s in rural Indiana to a childhood without much in the way of resources or possessions. She was a very thrifty and practical person, and she didn't discard things that were important or seemed potentially useful to her. The result of this trait, expanded out over a lifetime, is that she amassed some amazing collections of all kinds of things.
In the time spent dealing with my mother's stuff, especially when I dig out the similar items of my own for repacking with hers, I can't help but think of the future prospects for all of it. My/ our stuff now. This was an issue long before I became the "custodian of much more," but not one that seemed particularly pressing. However it was impossible for me to spend hours working with inherited things and not give some thought to the next person who will be faced with the task. I knew my mother well, we were best friends with lots of interests in common, and much of what she left was the detritus of my childhood and came accompanied by background and memories. Much of the rest of it is stuff I want, can use, and will give a good home to. What we don't want is being sold, recycled or donated to charity.
Had someone not been available to deal with my mother's things, my father would have disposed of them as quickly and as expediently as possible, I've no doubt of that. He sees no value in any of it, and just wanted it gone to allow him to transition to his new life. He is a minimalist who learned to live with my mother's possessions out of love, and I'm sure, to keep the peace. Once she was gone it was all just a painful irritant to him, a reminder of his loss and an impediment to his future.
Thankfully, I don't foresee this problem with my spouse, we have a similar outlook on collecting and appreciate the value of each other's possessions. Neither of us would keep inherited stuff that we have no interest in or use for, but either through selling or giving away, we would do our best to find good homes for it all. With new owners capable of appreciating the value of the item(s). But beyond that situation...lots of time thinking and reflecting and few answers, to a dilemma that has only increased with the increased volume of our possessions in the past year. A problem still in search of a solution.
As to the question posed in the title (Too Much Stuff?), of course it is possible to have too much stuff. A whole lot of stuff arriving suddenly can certainly seem like too much stuff when it results in gridlock that essentially makes finding or getting to anything difficult. But of course, that is "stuff" viewed in the abstract ("so much crap" to quote my father); unpack the box and take a close look at its contents, that allows an actual assessment of value to be made. At this point, yes, we still have too much stuff, however we are working on liquidating that excess to get ourselves to the point where the answer to the question is an easy "no."
