One by one, we pick through the articles of clothing. The funny t-shirts, the team jerseys, the school-logo sweatshirts, the once-stylish jeans, the gym shorts. One by one, the golden memories stir to life.
And, one by one, they are discarded.
It’s empty-nest clearance time for the geezer Meyer duo of Clinton, New York.
Out goes nearly all the clothing that got our two sons through childhood and adolescence. Some is being washed and donated to the Salvation Army. Other items — too worn, tattered or soiled to salvage — are being trashed.
Then, at the end of the day, the memories are returned to their proper rear-brain bin.
Less mental warmth (and physical value) is accorded the boys’ old school supplies and papers, which we’ve kept from pre-school through high school. Now, we’re saving almost nothing, at least in our initial attack on the boxes stored in the first room of the clean-out project, which we expect to take the better part of a year to complete.
Headed to the trash bag are the math work sheets, the social studies essays, the doodles, the notes, the assignment pads, the drawings, the book reviews . . . all the early academic stuff that meant so much for so long, that took so much work, that caused more than their fair share of anguish.
Many of these memories are best left alone. I grimace as I recall the many nights spent by these two young minds at their home desks, struggling to finish projects or homework. From outside my sons’ rooms, I suffered silently with them, feeling their drive for excellence (pushed by us and teachers alike) like it was my own, which it was when I was their age.
Was it all necessary? Pros and cons abound, a debate best left for another time and place.
But, regardless, we’ve all moved on, so it’s good-bye school stuff. Your departure is long overdue.
Will such cold, stark necessity be able to hold off the pull of sentimental value as we progress to the creations of their younger years, stored in boxes deep in the attic? These were more joyful, less pressurized works. Most of the backward mental trips they take us on could be downright tear-inducing.
Still, these nostalgia-drivers also must go, if we are to maintain our steady march to what we’re banking will be a bright, unencumbered senior-citizen future.
Really, we all have no choice.
Whether we downsize our residence or stay in this old one, the stuff we’ve held onto for decades, whether out of sentiment or inertia, cannot remain part of lives that are entering their final decades.
It’s something nearly all families face sooner or later: what to do with a lifetime of accumulation. Either the parents (alone or together) have to make the decisions or leave it up to their children.
The parents are far more capable and qualified — not to mention obligated, being the accumulators-in-chief — to make these choices, in consultation with their offspring. If it comes down to the children, then it probably follows the death or debilitating illness of one or both parents. The sons and daughters will already be dealing with the burdens of either grief or increased medical needs while attempting to keep their own lives churning.
My octogenarian mother, to her everlasting credit, has been taking on the task at her California residence for many years now. She has been shedding possessions left and right, making us all a bit uneasy at first, both at the thought of her mortality and the prospect that some valuable things would be lost. But it’s been painless.
Our own situation is different, taking place 20 years sooner than hers and with the intent/need to put ourselves in a position to downsize, move or at least cope in our later years. With the situation we face — two crammed attics, four other barely accessible rooms, a two-section shed overflowing with stuff, a kitchen lined with storage boxes, a 10-by-10-foot storage facility packed to the doors — any move will take years to accomplish.
We’ve known for years that we needed to tackle this massive elimination project. The impetus for action finally came with the prospect of . . . well, it’s a secret right now.
But I can say some further inspiration came last winter while I was reading the riveting, moving memoir by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” It’s a graphic non-fiction book about the final years of the author’s parents.
After her mother and father, at age 94, were relegated to a nursing facility, Chast was faced with the task of cleaning out their Brooklyn apartment. Her account of that daunting chore hit home, so to speak.
“I was aggravated that they hadn’t dealt with their accumulations, back when they had the ability to do so. That instead, when they decided to leave, they simply packed a couple of little bags and walked out, leaving me the task of cleaning out their apartment,” she wrote.
The randomly stockpiled possessions she found were unique to her parents — such as a “museum of old Schick savers,” her mom’s old glasses, tons of pencils everywhere, enough old purses to cover a bed, a drawer of old jar lids — but the overall borderline hoarding syndrome is pretty universal.
Just peering into the first room we had targeted for excavation, I could see piles of stuff that only stuck around to provide me occasional distant memories to savor: a dozen pompoms from hockey or football games we had attended to cheer on my college alma maters; clothing from my sons’ various stages of life.
A desk housed two long-obsolete computer towers and their likewise useless printer, scanner, speakers, software CDs, instructional books and reams of paperwork.
They had been kept for basically two reasons: They have to be hauled to a disposal site 10 miles away; the hard drives need to be destroyed so bad guys cannot mine them for personal information.
There also was old now-useless satellite radio equipment in one box and a shelf full of every pair of goggles I had bought in a years-long quest to find the right pair for comfort, vision and anti-leakage. I kept figuring somehow stuff like that would come in handy at some future time, like if someone wanted to swim and needed a pair of goggles. Sounds silly now. But I am still keeping at least one pair.
The desk debris was the first to be jettisoned. Then came the pompoms, unsalvageable clothing, old school papers and some old toys that would never be used by children in this day and age. Local landfills are bulging with Meyer discards this spring.
I had stared at these items daily during my morning exercise routines. Much of the clothing had been visible through the sides of plastic containers. The pompoms were atop a cardboard box full of clothing.
Yes, just knowing they were there brought me a degree of nostalgia and comfort during down times. However, like a ton of other items scattered around our house — baseball hats, pictures, books, paintings — they also make me sad. They are reminders of good times gone by, with the key words being “gone by,” meaning never to return.
I appreciated those experiences at the time and a lot of the memorabilia was bought so that I could retain some semblance of the good feelings that emanated from them, like those that fill us when we hear a favorite old song or see scenes from a favorite old TV show or movie.
But now the decades of distance from the memories has taken some of the edge off the nostalgia. And saying goodbye to the items, while a bittersweet act in itself, is freeing — an escape from the sadness they bring.
That’s pretty much what my mom said would happen, and it is true. The much-dreaded severance from the material representations of my past is turning me loose to start building an environment that can nurture future growth.
Of course, the “glass half empty” approach to life would depict all this jettisoning as the beginning of the end rather than a rebirth. After all, it is a prelude to creating a simpler, easier-to-handle living space, suitable to the geezer years, which, of course, are the end of the line.
Believe me, those morose thoughts are always hovering.
But I am trying my best to embrace a “glass half full” attitude:
Because there are just a few decades of life remaining, that makes these mounds of material possessions much less necessary to my life. Why not free myself up and finish with a new burst of life — fulfilling the bucket list, making new memories, enjoying my children’s exploits, hanging with the grandkids, discovering new things?
Makes sense, if you can envision the end of the process.
Right now, we are at the beginning, just getting used to the conflicting emotions and the massive time needed to accomplish the task.
It’s springtime, there is yard work to be done, a graduation to attend, a family to enjoy, warm weather to feel.
Incorporating the autumn of our years into this season of hope and change will take discipline. But, of course, we have no choice.
And, one by one, they are discarded.
It’s empty-nest clearance time for the geezer Meyer duo of Clinton, New York.
Out goes nearly all the clothing that got our two sons through childhood and adolescence. Some is being washed and donated to the Salvation Army. Other items — too worn, tattered or soiled to salvage — are being trashed.
Then, at the end of the day, the memories are returned to their proper rear-brain bin.
Less mental warmth (and physical value) is accorded the boys’ old school supplies and papers, which we’ve kept from pre-school through high school. Now, we’re saving almost nothing, at least in our initial attack on the boxes stored in the first room of the clean-out project, which we expect to take the better part of a year to complete.
Headed to the trash bag are the math work sheets, the social studies essays, the doodles, the notes, the assignment pads, the drawings, the book reviews . . . all the early academic stuff that meant so much for so long, that took so much work, that caused more than their fair share of anguish.
Many of these memories are best left alone. I grimace as I recall the many nights spent by these two young minds at their home desks, struggling to finish projects or homework. From outside my sons’ rooms, I suffered silently with them, feeling their drive for excellence (pushed by us and teachers alike) like it was my own, which it was when I was their age.
Was it all necessary? Pros and cons abound, a debate best left for another time and place.
But, regardless, we’ve all moved on, so it’s good-bye school stuff. Your departure is long overdue.
Will such cold, stark necessity be able to hold off the pull of sentimental value as we progress to the creations of their younger years, stored in boxes deep in the attic? These were more joyful, less pressurized works. Most of the backward mental trips they take us on could be downright tear-inducing.
Still, these nostalgia-drivers also must go, if we are to maintain our steady march to what we’re banking will be a bright, unencumbered senior-citizen future.
Really, we all have no choice.
Whether we downsize our residence or stay in this old one, the stuff we’ve held onto for decades, whether out of sentiment or inertia, cannot remain part of lives that are entering their final decades.
It’s something nearly all families face sooner or later: what to do with a lifetime of accumulation. Either the parents (alone or together) have to make the decisions or leave it up to their children.
The parents are far more capable and qualified — not to mention obligated, being the accumulators-in-chief — to make these choices, in consultation with their offspring. If it comes down to the children, then it probably follows the death or debilitating illness of one or both parents. The sons and daughters will already be dealing with the burdens of either grief or increased medical needs while attempting to keep their own lives churning.
My octogenarian mother, to her everlasting credit, has been taking on the task at her California residence for many years now. She has been shedding possessions left and right, making us all a bit uneasy at first, both at the thought of her mortality and the prospect that some valuable things would be lost. But it’s been painless.
Our own situation is different, taking place 20 years sooner than hers and with the intent/need to put ourselves in a position to downsize, move or at least cope in our later years. With the situation we face — two crammed attics, four other barely accessible rooms, a two-section shed overflowing with stuff, a kitchen lined with storage boxes, a 10-by-10-foot storage facility packed to the doors — any move will take years to accomplish.
We’ve known for years that we needed to tackle this massive elimination project. The impetus for action finally came with the prospect of . . . well, it’s a secret right now.
But I can say some further inspiration came last winter while I was reading the riveting, moving memoir by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, “Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” It’s a graphic non-fiction book about the final years of the author’s parents.
After her mother and father, at age 94, were relegated to a nursing facility, Chast was faced with the task of cleaning out their Brooklyn apartment. Her account of that daunting chore hit home, so to speak.
“I was aggravated that they hadn’t dealt with their accumulations, back when they had the ability to do so. That instead, when they decided to leave, they simply packed a couple of little bags and walked out, leaving me the task of cleaning out their apartment,” she wrote.
The randomly stockpiled possessions she found were unique to her parents — such as a “museum of old Schick savers,” her mom’s old glasses, tons of pencils everywhere, enough old purses to cover a bed, a drawer of old jar lids — but the overall borderline hoarding syndrome is pretty universal.
Just peering into the first room we had targeted for excavation, I could see piles of stuff that only stuck around to provide me occasional distant memories to savor: a dozen pompoms from hockey or football games we had attended to cheer on my college alma maters; clothing from my sons’ various stages of life.
A desk housed two long-obsolete computer towers and their likewise useless printer, scanner, speakers, software CDs, instructional books and reams of paperwork.
They had been kept for basically two reasons: They have to be hauled to a disposal site 10 miles away; the hard drives need to be destroyed so bad guys cannot mine them for personal information.
There also was old now-useless satellite radio equipment in one box and a shelf full of every pair of goggles I had bought in a years-long quest to find the right pair for comfort, vision and anti-leakage. I kept figuring somehow stuff like that would come in handy at some future time, like if someone wanted to swim and needed a pair of goggles. Sounds silly now. But I am still keeping at least one pair.
The desk debris was the first to be jettisoned. Then came the pompoms, unsalvageable clothing, old school papers and some old toys that would never be used by children in this day and age. Local landfills are bulging with Meyer discards this spring.
I had stared at these items daily during my morning exercise routines. Much of the clothing had been visible through the sides of plastic containers. The pompoms were atop a cardboard box full of clothing.
Yes, just knowing they were there brought me a degree of nostalgia and comfort during down times. However, like a ton of other items scattered around our house — baseball hats, pictures, books, paintings — they also make me sad. They are reminders of good times gone by, with the key words being “gone by,” meaning never to return.
I appreciated those experiences at the time and a lot of the memorabilia was bought so that I could retain some semblance of the good feelings that emanated from them, like those that fill us when we hear a favorite old song or see scenes from a favorite old TV show or movie.
But now the decades of distance from the memories has taken some of the edge off the nostalgia. And saying goodbye to the items, while a bittersweet act in itself, is freeing — an escape from the sadness they bring.
That’s pretty much what my mom said would happen, and it is true. The much-dreaded severance from the material representations of my past is turning me loose to start building an environment that can nurture future growth.
Of course, the “glass half empty” approach to life would depict all this jettisoning as the beginning of the end rather than a rebirth. After all, it is a prelude to creating a simpler, easier-to-handle living space, suitable to the geezer years, which, of course, are the end of the line.
Believe me, those morose thoughts are always hovering.
But I am trying my best to embrace a “glass half full” attitude:
Because there are just a few decades of life remaining, that makes these mounds of material possessions much less necessary to my life. Why not free myself up and finish with a new burst of life — fulfilling the bucket list, making new memories, enjoying my children’s exploits, hanging with the grandkids, discovering new things?
Makes sense, if you can envision the end of the process.
Right now, we are at the beginning, just getting used to the conflicting emotions and the massive time needed to accomplish the task.
It’s springtime, there is yard work to be done, a graduation to attend, a family to enjoy, warm weather to feel.
Incorporating the autumn of our years into this season of hope and change will take discipline. But, of course, we have no choice.