Days Twelve and Thirteen

At home near Fort Worth, Texas...

Okay, the holidays are over, and we're back at the chore of purging, purging. We have had another bit of good luck, however. The new owners are purchasing most of our furnishings! That is a huge help, in that we can mostly just walk away, not having to arrange for a big furniture moving effort! That doesn't mean we won't be busy up until the last minute, however. We are still making daily trips hauling non-furniture stuff to the storage unit and to the church thrift store, to say nothing of the junk we're taking to the curb as trash.

It's getting more difficult and tiresome to make the dozens of decisions each day as to what to do with every single thing we pick up. And these things are getting smaller in size and almost seem to be growing in number! We question our judgment at times, unsure that we have correctly categorized an item, asking each other's opinion often as to whether it would likely have any use or value to anyone.

Bear in mind that we have gone through several downsizings, and we really haven't been doing any hoarding. In fact, some of the storage cabinets have remained empty after we built the house. It's just that we finally have to deal with the small stuff that just accumulates unintentionally; I call it the detritus of life. A junk drawer, for example, is a source of a lot of frustration, because there's good stuff in there along with the junk. And it's not easy to try to guess which is which.

The hardest thing is trying to keep the sentimentality out of it to the degree possible. We realize that we can't keep every single thing our children and grandchildren have touched, but Sandy certainly would like to, if she could.

We also realize that, once the decision is made about each item, it will almost certainly be okay. After all of our previous downsizings, including our parents' estate sales, we can't think of a single thing that we wish we had kept.

Something that has been particularly annoying for me is trying to decide which articles of clothing to keep. I think I'm like most guys in that I really don't have "favorites" like Sandy does. If it fits comfortably and is functional for the weather of the day, then it's good to go. I try to observe some kind of color matching, but this has largely deteriorated into two categories: Things that are red-orange-brown and things that are blue-green-yellow. There are certain colors that simply defy categorization; these include black, white, gray, beige and pink. Who knows what to do with those? (Fortunately, I don't think I have anything pink, except maybe a tie--which I certainly shouldn't have kept.)

Here's the kind of dilemma I face: I probably have three or four dozen mostly casual shirts remaining after having given most of the dress shirts away. These are all in good condition and fit well, and I don't dislike any of them; yet I can't keep dozens of shirts in Phannie. So which ones do I discard? 

To keep from getting a headache, I have decided to put the excess into storage and deal with this later. I'm sure that, before long, I will open up the storage unit and say to myself, "What was I thinking?"  

And so it goes, all through each day. And in the back of my mind is the nagging realization of something quite ominous: (I'm whispering now)...we haven't even started on the attic!

God help us.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; please forgive me if I don't appreciate it enough each day.