It’s fun to read about, or watch movies about, ordinary people stumbling across amazing treasures in the attic. What’s in your attic? Are there treasures up there, or is it filled with dusty relics that you can’t bear to part with?
What are you planning on doing with all that stuff? You aren’t a hoarder, or so you say, but if you can’t resist browsing flea markets, souvenir stores, or yard sales, you may be close to crossing the line.
You may have figured out by now that nobody, especially your kids, wants your “stuff.” Well, they may think twice if you have Hummel figurines or real Wedgewood China, but otherwise, I don’t think so.
If your attic is overflowing, you may have too much stuff. You are not alone here, the notion of saving for a rainy day goes back a long way. You may be saving for the inevitable, or you may just be sentimental.
What kind of stuff are you holding on to? Trinkets that you bought at a flea market, souvenir collectables, or items that you bought from the home shopping network? Are they really treasures or are they up there because the idea of cutting back is too daunting.
Older folks are more apt to save for sentimental reasons. There is a certain comfort, a sense of familiarity, a continuity, that is associated with the past. Young people, on the other hand, want newer and better “things,” although you are going to hear about it if you threw away their first edition comic books or baseball cards.
Your heirs don’t want your “stuff,” and you need to accept that. Do you really want your children to spend weeks culling through your belongings? More than likely, they will hire an estate sale manager to do it for them and it will be strangers going through your “heirloom treasures,” and selling them (gasp) at a yard sale.
Looking to the past is not always wonderful, happy, or tender. Let it go; clutter doesn’t create history; memories do.
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