Sylvia

My next door neighbor, Sylvia, has to move in a week. Her mortgage was foreclosed and her house sold out from under her. I have been helping her and her family members pack up her household. It's quite an undertaking. By touching some of her possessions and packing them away, I have come to learn more about her remarkable life. She was a talented nurse who enjoyed her job very much until her knee problem forced her into retirement. She still likes to subscribe to nursing magazines and cherishes some of her technical books. She has been devoted to her family and it shows. Her daughter Pam is a gem, who took off work for a week to help her mother pack. Her other relatives in town are going to let her stay at their mobile home that they no longer use very much. She still has family that cares.

That being said, her situation is making me think about my own possessions. Her 3 bedroom 2 bath home is comfortably stuffed with things that help her remember her life. She has wonderful photos of her departed husband and other family members. I wouldn't exactly call her a hoarder, but she definitely does not like throwing out anything that might be useful someday. I get that mentality. But I'm seeing how hard her relatives, especially Pam, are working to help her with the move. I sense their frustration with all of her stuff, and love for her at the same time. How can they give her too bad a time about decluttering when her heart is breaking because of the foreclosure?

I have been in the mood to downsize for a long time, especially since we put our house in Bellevue up for sale. Sylvia's situation makes me want to be extra thorough in decluttering when we do move out of that house. I need to examine why I want to keep certain things and also ask if I would want to burden my family with disposing of what I keep if something happened to me. Someone recommended making DVD's of things around the house that have been important to you, describing the history, then just keep the DVD's. That could work for me. As a side note, my sewing stash(es) will almost take care of themselves. All my survivors would need to do is contact my friends in ASG and have them haul it away! Certain friends know what I have and which members favor my colors and fabric types. I think they'd have fun.