When my husband and I got married, the only furniture or household items either of us had was a kitchen table and chairs that he had bought before meeting me. We bought everything else except what was given to us for the wedding shower and wedding. After our honeymoon, we came home to discover that there were still a lot of things we did not have—scissors, for instance.
Thirty-some years later, we have raised two children to adulthood and moved several times. Every time we moved, we got rid of things only to find at the new place there were different things we needed. We might need a shower caddy in one house, but not another.
People never realize how much stuff they have until they move it. Each move makes them decide which items have enough value and meaning to keep. As we grow older, some of us downsize and have to sort even more carefully. And, when there is a brush fire a mile from your house and you find yourself in an evacuation zone, you really have to think.
This happened to my husband and me this week. First, of course, we knew to preserve important information, so we packed computers and paper files. After that, we had to decide what was worth packing. I did not think about monetary value. I thought about what we personally valued.
My husband loves to bowl, so that is what he chose first. “I’ve got my bowling balls. I’m good,” he said. I pulled out bins of old pictures and negatives. For those of you who are young, a negative comes from film that has been used to print pictures. I don’t know if there are still places that can turn a negative into a printed picture, but I packed them anyway. We continued to go through each room and finally packed some clothes and toiletries. When we had it all in the cars ready to leave, I looked around at what was left. There were a million little things that could have gone up in smoke, but I had to ask myself if they really mattered.
In the end, it is all just stuff, and someday when we die, each thing will either be a burden or a blessing for our children. That was another question I had to ask myself as I looked around—what would bless my children, and what would be something they needed to get rid of?
We were very lucky that the wind blew away from our house instead of towards it. We did not actually evacuate, although we remained in the “zone” for hours. After this experience, I look at our possessions in a new way. How much of it do we really need? Which items have sentimental value? What can be replaced, and what cannot? What would we replace if we lost it? I keep thinking of the phrase, “You can’t take it with you,” and boy that is true. Look around your homes. What would you take, and what would you leave? I will tell you this. You will learn a lot about yourself by deciding.