Use It or Lose It

Have you ever held on to something, not because you like it, but because you feel obligated to? Maybe it was something you received from your first boyfriend, or a parent or grandparent who has passed, or maybe it was your child’s first school drawing. I’m sure we are all guilty of it. I am.

As Nick and I get closer to our official move-in date at the new house I am starting to realize how much stuff the two of us have accumulated living together over the past three years. I’m not one for clutter, and I don’t like the thought of keeping things you don’t actually need, but then why do I have a bin of horse show ribbons sitting in the corner of my room collecting dust? Sentimental value – for the moment, I guess.

It’s so much easier to get rid of things when you aren't emotionally attached to them. Old clothes, books, shoes, etc. Most of these things don’t matter much to me. I can easily get rid of them. I love to donate old things to AM Vets or Goodwill, and I do.

But what about the old things that you use, that you don’t love, could easily get rid of, but are strangely attached to?

For example, I have two matching corner book shelves, one of which has traveled with us to both of our previous houses, and the other one sits in my parent’s basement. They don’t match anything (other than the table and chairs that we also have, which used the same stain). The table and chairs never made it upstairs in the house we are currently in, and won’t make it into the new house. But I will keep them. Why? Because my grandfather, of whom I have never met, built them. I feel a need to keep them. I like them, but they just aren’t going with the décor at the new house.

My BFF and I had the same conversation this weekend about her mother’s plates. She thinks they are ugly, but she uses them, and feels obligated to keep them because they are her mother’s, but they aren’t her style.

There are two main reasons we save things:
1. We’re worried that, no matter how unlikely, we might want to use them someday.
2. Things have sentimental value – they are an anchor to a memory of a past event.

I’m certainly more #2 than #1… I’m good about, if I don’t use it, I get rid of it. But I hang on to those memories of the past. Needless to say, I will get rid of the bin of horse show ribbons before we move – I have no use for them. I will, however, keep my bookshelves and the table and chairs (for reasons #1 & #2).

I'm sure at some point I will let go of them, whether they end up in the garbage, donated or passed down to my children. I just know that right now, I'm not willing to part ways with a link to my past that I don't know much about. These are the items I have to remember a man I have never met.

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