Thanks for the Memories
Have you heard of Simplicity by September? No? Maybe you know it as Junk Free July? Organized in October? Less Mess March? It’s ok. Clearly, we’ve got some work to do. There’s a movement going on in the world. We GenXers have hit the wall. We were tasked with caregiving for our Greatest Gen parents, or even our Boomer elders (I had both), and we weren’t expecting the fallout to be this grim. Those generations subscribed to a waste not/want not philosophy. They realized the value of things. Their epiphany was centered around the fact that things cost money, but if they only took care of all possessions properly, if they guarded/ tended/repaired/saved, then they would never need to buy those things again. “I could toss this tin foil, but what if I just kept saving the tiny pieces until it formed a ball large enough to take up a spare bedroom? I’d never have to worry about having enough tin foil again!” Saving the Benjamins was all that mattered to them. It is a worthy and valid hill to die on, I must say. But, the result is utter chaos, especially to those of us left behind to declutter homesteads, execute wills, and dispense tchotchkes. It’s like we all woke up one morning, after futile attempts to find anyone willing to house Great Aunt Opal’s fox stole that she only ever wore once a year when Uncle Opie took her downtown to see the Christmas window at Niemen-Marcus, shouting the same mantra. WE WILL NOT DO THIS TO OUR CHILDREN. We won’t force them to hang onto the gift tags we saved for them from the baby showers thrown for us when they were still safe in our bellies (true story). They will not inherit bags upon bags of empty penny roller casings (also true). Their inheritance will not center around a metric ton of instamatic triplicate pictures that show more fingertips than scenery (yep). And, unlike our parents, we’ll save our children the guilt of having to feel that feeling of impending doom from throwing away the things they know we cherished. We will get rid of everything. We will do it right now.