Sentimental Stuff

article by Meredith McKinnie

Two friends were combining households. It’s exciting, blending possessions, weaving two lives together. But when it comes later in life, when it’s not as much a new start as it is a fresh start, moving in together comes with a lot of physical stuff. Both friends had lived independently for over a decade, meaning years of household items bought and discarded, but not really discarded, only put in the unused bedrooms in case they come of use later. Whose coffee pot do we use now? Whose towels are newer? Do you need all those shirts? You only rotate through about six since I’ve known you. These are the questions asked and negotiations made when two houses become one.

When my husband and I showed up to help one of these friends move in with the other, I was amazed at all the stuff. He had collected high school trophies, CDs without a CD player, 80s hit DVDs, dusty cookbooks, half-completed Word Find puzzles with the mechanical pencil still lodged in the sixth page, high school football practice tapes, jars of change, random cords that didn’t seem to power anything from this decade… in my opinion, JUNK. I paused over the boxes, exchanged anxious glances with the other friend, the one whose house was about to be invaded with these boxes of trash. Is he keeping this stuff? You can’t be serious? She quickly closed the nearest box, hiding the absurdity of this stuff being saved, much less moved, and we continued this process throughout the rest of the morning.

On the way home, my husband and I started talking about stuff. When we moved in together, though we had both lived independently before we met, I don’t remember insisting boxes be thrown away. I don’t remember him having a lot of stuff. His apartment looked like the typical bachelor’s, bare minimum essentials and not a drop of personality, a blank slate on which to create. When I was practically living at his apartment anyway, I would casually bring in potted plants, a three-foot Christmas tree during the holidays, nothing extravagant. The place was less than 1000 square feet. And when we moved into our first brick home, the stuff we brought was ours. Nothing was left behind or at the trash heap.

I frequently throw stuff away; it makes me feel lighter. If it hasn’t been used in the last six months, it’s going before the end of the year. And that works in our home, in our shared space. But when I randomly go out into the backyard shop for one of the kid’s toys, I notice the stuff is piling up. We have old fake trees, Christmas decorations that seemed appropriate at the time, but haven’t been used in years. When I suggested we clean out the shop, I got a resounding, “No. I like my shop the way it is.” What is it with some people’s connection to stuff, the sentimentality of material possessions that seemingly have no sentimental value? And why is it so hard for some people to part with?

Perhaps it has to do with how we’re raised. I grew up in a large house, with the attic encompassing half of the second floor. It wasn’t full. You could walk around up there, quickly locate whatever you were looking for. I also remember my mother cleaning the attic out, bagging up unused items to donate in the spring. If we weren’t using it, someone else could. I thought of things as just that, things. When my grandfather died, I remember my grandmother boxing up his clothes and selling his truck shortly after his death. Friends seemed surprised when I mentioned what she was doing, as if she should have held onto them a little while longer. She, too, saw stuff as just stuff. It wasn’t Papaw’s stuff anymore. Papaw was gone.

Sometimes now I’m tempted to jokingly ask my friends where the boxes of Word-Find puzzles are, to suggest the mantle could use a nice big jar bursting with pennies. She would laugh. He wouldn’t. It’s not just stuff to him. And even though the boxes are buried in their now-shared attic space, it must make him feel better. Stuff is sentimental, and sentimentality is personal. People have individual quirks, and it makes life interesting. It may mean less attic space, but some battles should be left on the shelf.