A while back a friend invited me to join her at an estate sale. I had been to one years ago where rooms of beautiful antique furniture were on display and for sale. Being a lover of old-fashioned wood craftsmanship, I happily agreed to go.
We drove for about an hour as the landscape became more and more rural and eventually wound up at a small, deteriorating farmhouse. I thought perhaps I was going to be treated to displays of handmade rustic furniture but instead walked into rooms that all look like this:
Every room contained card tables of odd bric-a-brac, a collection of memories for whoever had lived in this house. The bedroom closets still had clothes hanging (for sale) as if the occupants had just stepped out for a moment. Everything else from cabinets to drawers, had been scooped up and randomly piled on these makeshift tables throughout the house.
I got so unnerved that I had to leave and wait in the car. I felt that all these people who had come to the sale were stampeding like bulls in a very personal china shop. And I hoped that whoever had lived here had been able to leave a more enduring legacy than tables of knickknacks and kitchenware.
My spouse cannot throw away anything. Our small house is overflowing with “stuff”, much to my consternation. I assume her clutter tendencies are from being orphaned at a very young age and having an emotional need to hang onto things. I, on the other hand, once lost literally everything I owned as a young adult and learned the downside of too much attachment to things. Now I own very few things that I don’t have a daily use for. Except for clothing, musical instruments and some books (which I have weeded down to just classics and collectibles), all my stuff could probably fit in one box.
As we age together, I keep thinking back to that estate sale and wonder what will happen to all the stuff in our house. I have talked to Martha about not leaving the burden of disposing of the contents to our daughters who have emphatically said they do not want 99% of it. She nods and agrees yet still can’t part with any of it. And I keep walking around imagining card tables in every room, piled high with her stuff, and strangers pawing over them, looking for some prized knickknack that their kids will have to dispose of.
