Ourselves, our possessions, our pasts and our very identity in Daydreaming on the Porch

(Part of a continuing series. See my recent PB entries for introductory background information.)

Holding on to way too much “stuff” from my past, both recent and now-distant, has been a painful problem for me for decades, and although I’ve managed to toss a lot of more or less insignificant things I’ve held onto, and have give away to the library hundreds of books, it still hasn’t made a real dent in my overall clutterscape.

Now that I’ve moved from a four-bedroom house into a one-bedroom apartment, it’s never been more apparent how much I actually have. There is not a square foot of my new place that is not utilized. What to do about all this? There’s no easy solution, I’ve discovered. I’m tackling the problem (and that unfortunately is what it has become), incrementally at best.

Somehow I’ve managed to cram most of my treasured belongings into a space that’s less than a third the size of Mom’s house where I lived for 12 years, ten of those as her primary caregiver. It’s not a pretty sight with books stacked everywhere; magazines piled up to read because there’s never enough time for that since so much of it is spent on my phone utilizing the vast resources of the Internet; and knick-knacks, framed photos, and keepsakes on every available countertop, end table and coffeee table. Stuff and more stuff, and I keep acquiring.

I love this stuff. I really need a huge mansion to live in and then I’d be able to properly display all the do-dads I’ve bought at Michael’s and Tuesday Morning.

I did manage to toss a bunch of old algebra and geometry tests from high school that I’ve kept in folders and boxes since 1969. I have lots and lots of other school papers from 8th grade essays to researched chapter papers for my short-lived PhD studies and dissertation work in the 1980s.

I have a hard time throwing away anything that is remotely interesting to me because each and every bit of minutia has a story behind it. Everything. That is an important, if not the most important factor in my accumulating tendencies. This is how I recall my past. Memory slips as you get older, but mine is constantly refreshed every time I go through a box of memorabilia. I think I’d feel lost without most of this stuff.

So as long as my place is navigable, and not too overwhelming, I’ll live with it. Let me state emphatically that I am by no means a classic hoarder. I have parted with tons of stuff over the years. But guilt? Yes. That doesn’t go away.

For more perspective on why “things,” “objects,” “clutter,” “artifacts,” and “memorabilia” mean so much to me, this essay written ten years ago show how inextricably these things are interwoven into myself and my psyche, or in other words, my sense of who I actually am. The past would mean much less to me if it weren’t for all these things, which I like to refer to as “artifacts.” And I would be a far less complete and developed person.

Last updated May 31, 2022