I’ve thought a lot about “stuff” lately. Some my own, while moving house, some other peoples’, helping family to move house. Perhaps lately, I’ve seen too much stuff.
I think it’s become popular lately to downsize and clear out. After all, clutter seems to accumulate, it’s only on moving house, when you have to pack everything up that you realise just how much “stuff” has followed you home. As you pick through your “stuff”, one thing at a time, to characterise it, safely box it up, or bin it, you’ll quickly realise that you have no idea where so much of it came from. To me, it might’ve looked like it’d come in useful, or was too good to waste. Some things might’ve fallen down the back of the furniture and only reappeared when doing the final clean before leaving a place for good. A lot of stuff is simply not worth the hassle of moving: bin it, buy fresh at the other end.
But maybe, on moving, you’ll keep your stuff again. Maybe this is the third move that you’ve kept that same stuff again, because the same potential you saw in that stuff is still there. Maybe, on unpacking, you find you binned (or worse, lost) something that you now realise you wish you hadn’t, and there’s a feeling of loss when you realise that potential is lost.
Some stuff you’ll look at and know exactly where it came from. Exactly why you bought or found it and subsequently kept it. Some stuff can take you back to a time or a place, and sure, you can remember that time or that place, but would you remember it if you hadn’t been prompted by that stuff? Will you remember it in another 20 years without that stuff to jog your memory?
This stuff is the most interesting to me, because to anyone else, it’s probably meaningless, but to you, it holds huge significance. Some of it may be worthless to anyone else, but to you it’s priceless.
So, declutter and clean up. Streamline and downsize, but think carefully about what you get rid of and what you keep: some stuff is good stuff.
With our best wishes, Beth’s Wishes