STUFF

Have you ever had the experience of having to enter some one's home after they died to go through their things? It is an unbelievably personal task. Perhaps a grandmother, aunt, parent, friend or the like...It is a soulful experience that brings you to a place where you feel incredibly connected to the person and yet, at the same time, saddened that all you have left of them, physically, is the "stuff". You quickly comfort yourself with the layers of memories that soothe the loss and fill the void. This activity makes you keenly aware of your own things. I can not imagine someone else in my stuff. Moreover as a way of protecting myself from this loving invasion, I am clear, I want less stuff. I am not dying...or at least I am not aware that I am...but I do know that I will, someday. At the rate of "stuff accumulation" I am going... my things will overtake me by about age 57.... So I have a new goal...to purge...purge...purge. I will start with my own stuff...I will condense. I will scan. I will archive. I will sell. I will give away. I will not collect stuff anymore. Maybe when I die, someday in the way distant future, someone will say...she didn't have much stuff...but BOY DID SHE HAVE FUN! I have a lot of work to do! Terri