By Regena Handy
I remember hearing once that moving seven times is comparable to a house fire—how one weeds out and gets rid of that many possessions each time they relocate.
I’m here to tell you this is just not true. Hey, maybe that was one of those fake news sources or alternative facts or some such I keep hearing about on TV.
Oops, sorry. No politics.
The first move we made after our marriage in 1971 was to a small furnished apartment. We loaded our clothes, a few personal items, and wedding gifts into my husband’s 1957 Chevy and off we went. One trip.
The next year we relocated to Martinsville while I attended Patrick Henry Community College. This time to a furnished mobile home, so again a single trip in the ’57 and the Chevy Nova that we also owned by then.
As the years went by, there were more moves, with first one child, then another. We borrowed pickup trucks and filled them with baby beds and the hand-me-down sofa set from the in-laws and an old bedroom suite once owned by my great-uncle and by then in my mother’s possession. Several vehicles, several trips this time.
Finally, home became the little house we built in 1982 and still live in today. That change involved vans and trucks, several strong men, and one old heavy piano that my husband vows will remain in the house forever more.
Sometimes I imagine that first move in comparison to doing so again today. It would take a bulldozer, dump truck, garbage truck, maybe a car hauler, and a moving company with lots of panel trucks and big, muscled helpers.
Okay, I jest. Well, maybe a little.
It seems that when we are young, our wants and necessities are never ending. We buy and buy, sometimes going in debt to do so, until one morning we wake up and realize our life is an explosion of stuff.
As we get older, values change and shelves of memorabilia that once brought us pleasure actually become a burden, dust collectors, meaningless clutter. We start yearning for space more than the things that fill it up.
In our case, not only do we have an accumulation from 45 years of marriage, but that of other people, as well. Things from my parents’ house, tangible memories I want to keep. Same with the in-laws—beautiful pieces we’ll regret letting go. But hardest to part with are the belongings of our late son.
All of which means the outbuildings and basement are overflowing. The downstairs office and den are no longer usable, as they have become storage rooms. Our son’s upstairs bedroom is filled with his effects. Plus all that stuff that is housed in rented storage.
People my age are starting to joke about it—what’s going to happen to all our possessions. How we hate to leave such a mess for our progeny. We kid about being hoarders, then lay out our excuses. You know, how we might find a use for this or that someday … not good enough to give away but too good to throw away … and the one I’ve used several times, how I’m going to lose enough weight to get into that dress (never mind that I’ve had it for 20 years and it is way out of style).
So this is where we are these days. Now that we’ve spent nearly half a century collecting material things, we’re preoccupied with organizing and purging our lives of it. You know, in retrospect, I really wish we’d just kept the ’57 Chevy and the Nova instead.
