Day Three at the corner of the Microtel and Hell. Craig often tells me this blog makes my life seem much more glamorous than reality. Well this is reality.
We are cleaning out sixty plus years of accumulation from my parents' home to prepare for its sale. Actually, it's more like 100 plus years of stuff since my parents became the keeper of their family histories when their parents died.
I feel some obsessive responsibility to carry on the tradition and move the ancestral scraps into storage at my house. All the little glimpses into lives that passed so quickly. A temporary teaching license issued to my grandfather so he could feed his family by teaching second grade during the depression. Birth, marriage and death announcements of great-grandparents. Little snippets from my own childhood in the form of report cards, graduation and baptism announcements, letters from camp, etc... Engineering texts and school yearbooks of my father's. Recipes from my mother written in shorthand. And the boxes of old photos.
A certain degree of guilt bubbles up when I realize I can't pack the car with another set of my mother's china and my grandmother's crystal to sit unused with the other three sets of ancestors' Sunday dishes already harbored in my kitchen cabinets. The antique rocker, caned bench, and desk won't fit in the CRV. The cute vintage garden cart must be left behind, and the nineteenth century collar box crammed with saved bits of brittle newspaper clippings detailing family griefs and triumphs may well end up at the town dump.
It's not that I don't care. It's just that I'm not prepared to transport the family historical museum to the closets of my house to create the same nightmare for my son someday. And if you think I'm kidding about the museum, my great uncle Willard actually housed his own in the basement of his Craftsmen bungalow. I took the free tour several times in childhood. So tomorrow will be about sorting and tossing.
Tonight I begged my sister-in-law to mount the mechanical pony in the lobby at Walmart so I'd have a photo for this blog post, but she declined to humiliate herself. She could have ended up featured in the People of Walmart.
At the local bar tonight, we were tempted to make an announcement that we'd left all the doors unlocked at our ancestral home. Come and get it! After all, it might make our job a lot quicker! (You know I jest?)
See. Life's not always a beach! In fact, it's a giant case of insomnia from chugging too much Diet Pepsi and not getting enough exercise.
Update -- We're still the keeper of almost all of it, but I'll figure it out in the near future so my son doesn't have to go through the same. Grandma's wedding dress from the early 1900's is riding in the back of the CRV. Scoot over Saby.
10 comments:
We are going through a similar process ourselves... but it is our stuff we're getting rid of. We're selling everything that won't fit in 2 suitcases and a large trunk that we'll store at my Father's. I've tossed photo albums and given away family heirlooms. I'm tired of being dragged down by things that I don't really feel a connection to anymore. We've spent over $1000 month every month for 6 years to maintain a house we don't live in just to house our stuff and that is nuts. I'd like to say it is cathartic but right now I'm just tired of dealing with it and want it gone. And... like you, living on a diet of pizza and coffee so I'm up at 3 am...
Diane, I hear ya! I'll take a photo of the gigantic dumpster today. We found a wedding dress from the late 1800's yesterday. I don't think my ancestors really thought someone in 2012 would still be hanging onto this stuff, so I don't feel bad about tossing.
I'm torn! On one hand I want to mention that the CRV will tow a Uhaul trailer, especially when filled with wicker.
On the other hand, the UPS guy will soon pickup our 10 boxes of Haviland china on its way to my niece's house. Her turn to not use it for 30 years, and it belonged to her grandmother's grandmother.
Goodwill might like some treasures--just hope they don't later appear on Antiques Roadshow and worth a gazillion!
We're having a "living estate" sale... we've taken some stuff to the dump, some to our local thrift store and then we'll sell the rest. Whatever is left after our 3 day sale will go to the thrift store too. The money will go in a "restart" fund for whatever the future holds down the line. Most of what we have is really good stuff and someone will probably get a lot more use out of it than we have!
drgeo, one of my granny sets is a double set of Haviland -- and it's never been used. I inherited it from my aunt who'd never used it who inherited it from my grandmother who used the Early American Fostoria on Sunday. And the Early American Fostoria is also in my house and I only use the serving dishes. Diane, hope your future holds a new adventure and freedom from all the baggage that ties most of us down. We should only have another half day of work to go now, then a three hour drive to Kansas City. All of us are dead tired. Wish I was Dorothy and could click my heels home to Arizona.
And drgeo, we don't have a trailer hitch to haul home all that baggage. (That's a good thing. Hopefully, I'll take the example set by my aunt and clean out my own stuff little by little so my son doesn't end up in the same position some day.)
oh boy...I totally know where you're coming from. We dealt w/the exact same thing last fall w/steve's mom--problem is she moved it all right back into the basement where she is now...and it does fill the entire basement...just...stuff. never will throw a thing away...but, at least she's reliving those memories in rediscovering things meaningful to her...but, we will event have to deal with it all again...!!
I feel your pain Kris!
I'm sure Michael will look lovely in the wedding dress!
drgeo, it's actually in a tiny little box, so I just couldn't leave it behind. I guess it will take its place on the closet shelf on top of my dress box.
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