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Teri C's avatar

I’ve done 2 houses in the last 4 years. One, my in laws had lived in since 1963 and threw out NOTHING. The other, my mom, who is still alive, gave me sleepless nights of guilt. I’m watching my brother downsize and get rid of most of their furniture, antiques from his in laws. They are enjoying buying smaller pieces for themselves instead of carting the ancestors. After all this, we have started tossing stuff.

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Inky Horton's avatar

I cleared my stepfather’s and mother’s house. They were both hoarders and I had no help from step brother or sister bar one of them breaking into the house and removing the survival items of fridge, cooker, kettle and hoover for when I was staying and complaining when the “one item they wanted” had been taken down to the charity shop despite having been offered numerous chances to come a collect what was important to them. They lived locally whereas I lived 250 miles away and a single mother.

It took 18mths because there was important stuff in the piles of detritus. I lost valuable time with my son and never imagined it would take so much time … time I couldn’t get back and he needed me. It was an emotionally charged process, the sifting exhausting , I got to know the local tip lads on first name basis . The most painful thing was finding some paperwork of my mother’s she had saved to prove she wasn’t cheating social security from when I was a child . She had been called an immoral undeserving woman by a Social Security inspector and felt terrified he would be back every month to see she was using to her small allowance properly. She noted exactly how much money she spent on milk powder and nappies to the last penny. She kept them all in order, neatly in a box since 1963 . She took the box from house to house for decades. I wept, wished we could have shared a moment over tea and biscuits, hugged and then burnt that box of trauma. She carried it long after she ever should have done. She didn’t need to do it alone either.

We owe it to ourselves and to those who have to pack our life away to take the time while we can and curate our belongings. Letting things go is a healthy part of the flow of life as is keeping that that gives us joy.

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