Cleaning out

There comes a time in everyone's life when they have to re-think the clutter in their lives. I don't mean work, classes, organizations, kids events and such, but the actual clutter! As we get older, our collection of "stuff" grows. We each have treasures from our childhood. Then, we have the school years. Of course there's our young adult lives. (The first trip/vacation on your own, your first apartment, etc.) Then perhaps you get married and have children. Wow...now your home is filled with all sorts of beautiful things. I have to say things because not everything you receive is easy to categorize!
Over the past month or so, I have been busy sorting and condensing all of the treasures our house holds. I have discovered that we need a house about twice the size to hold everything we have! And this is the time in our life when we're supposed to be thinking about downsizing!
This ritual cleansing has truly been a trip down memory lane. It was spurred on by the fact that we moved Rick's Mom to a smaller apartment. She had tons of stuff and each item had a story. We knew that she wouldn't be able to fit everything into her new space, so it needed to be relegated to a place. That place could be the yard sale, the new apartment or a child's home. Just what we needed, more stuff to find a home for! But, we inheireted a beautiful antique china cabinet and all of Mom's pink Depression glass. That was the catalyst for the cleaning. In order to have a place for the new china closet, space had to be made in our dining room. Anyone who has been to our home knows that there rally was nowhere to add another large piece of furniture. So, decisions had to be made. What to keep, what to get rid of, what to "re-purpose". What a challenge!
The storage room needed to be cleaned & sorted so that there would be room for the stuff we would keep, but not necessarily display. This room was a treasure trove of memories. Everything from Matt's first teddy bear to Tiff's bag o' stuffed animals. There were board game galore (handy to have when there was no power!). Lots of treasures from the kids high school years. And photographs! Lots of photographs. Those spanned over a hundred years!! Photos from my Mom's youth through photos of our children's early years. It took forever to clean out that room. Partly for the amount of stuff in there, but more because of the memories in there.
As anyone will tell you, it's a process. There are things that don't "make the cut" and must find another life, outside our four walls. Our piano is a perfect example. over the years, it had progressed from a musical instrument to a place to put photos and trinkets. It was time for it to have a renewed life (just not in my dining room!). It went to a lovely lady who was just starting to take piano lessons and was thrilled to have an actual piano, not a "keyboard'. I know she'll treasure it for what it was meant to be. It wasn't easy to say goodbye to it, but that's part of cleaning house.
Children's treasures have been boxed up, with their names on it for a time in the future when they can take them to their homes and quietly relive their memories.
It's a time consuming and sometimes overwhelming project. It's taken years to create this mosaic of life and will undoubtedly take a while to sort it all out. But the trip down memory lane has been one I'll never forget.