Cleaning House

I had walked down to pick up the mail, and upon my return, my neighbour asked if I felt good about the clean-up. I had to think about that for a few minutes but my quick reply was not really. For the last two weeks, we have been cleaning out our house. I understand that Spring Cleaning usually takes place in the Spring, but being retired means you can do the work anytime. We brought in a large 20-foot-long container to make the job easier and it was.

Two years ago, my mother-in-law died and after her death, my wife and I were faced with a problem of what to do with her stuff. When my mom died it took my brothers and me about two years to sort through her stuff and make decisions. So I was not going to pressure my wife on what to do with her mom's stuff. While much of my mother-in-law's big stuff, furniture, and some small stuff were taken by nieces and nephews, there was a large amount of stuff that was left, so it ended up in our garage for safekeeping.

I am a collector and over the years the garage was filled with things that I might use one day, or that I thought I might need or might want to fix-up. Adding my mother-in-law’s stuff just made the garage look more like a hoarder’s dream than a garage.

After much discussion, we decided to make the move and clean out our stuff. I had come to the realization as had my wife that our children and nieces and nephews, and young cousins do not want our stuff. They have a different attitude toward what they consider valuable. It was time to act, so the bin was moved to the front of our house and we began to clean-up. I started. It was very simple, too good to throw out, to charity. Not good enough for charity throw it out. Two weeks later we have finished the job, and thus my neighbour's question and my response.

The easy answer was yes, I felt good about the fact I no longer had a hoarder’s garage, but I felt sad about losing the tangible items that when looked at invoked memories of earlier times. My wife said to me if we have to sell to move into an assisted living situation in the next ten years it will be a lot easier to make the move, I agreed but have no desire to move into that situation for at least 20 years.

We are not finished because we tend to accumulate over the years. So, while we still have boxes of “stuff” to go through, but we know the “stuff” in the boxes is either to keep or to give to charity, not to throw out. This cleaning up is a first step in letting go and moving on and starting to make an ending. This involves more than just throwing out your stuff. The cleaning house we just completed is a good ending as it required me to let go not only of what I used to have and do. I still have the memories so it is time to look forward to life’s next adventure.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell