KALEIDOSCOPE

As I looked around my basement this week, I realized I had packratitis.  I inherited this condition from my parents and grandparents, and I have passed it on to my children.  This condition is characterized by the unnecessary urge to save things.  My basement is the saving archive.

My 80 year old mother has given me the motivation to begin tackling my packkratitis.  She has decided that, rather than leaving her four story disaster to me, we should together clean out every nook and cranny in the house.  Since she can’t part with things, I have to be the one to determine what needs to be saved, sold, or trashed.

Let’s begin in her basement.  My father died nearly 20 years ago, but she still has his shop hardware cabinets full of the hardware he collected: screws, washers, nuts, and bolts.  She wants my hubby and me to go through this and see if there is anything we want.  If not, she is going to give the “stuff” to a neighbor.  I pity that poor person because much of the “stuff” belongs in the trash.  In another area of the basement, she still has all her teaching supplies; she has been retired for better than 20 years.  She is shipping that stuff to a cousin who she says is “thrilled” to get it.  Don’t get me wrong; her house is neat, and the collections of “stuff” would not be noticed by any random guest.  It’s just that she has saved numerous things with the idea that they will become valuable or collector’s items one day.  I have yet to find anything that is of true value, and I have taken numerous trips to Borders book store to peruse the collector and antique volumes only to find that the “thing” might be worth $2.00.

It has gotten me thinking, though, about the “stuff” my children and I have saved in hopes that it too would command a high price.  Never fear, none of the items has even gotten as far as the original price we paid for it.

As for the rest of the stuff, I am throwing out pictures drawn by the 2 - 4 year old child, the penmanship poems from school, the math papers and spelling papers, but I am saving the pictures and the “I’m proud of that” original projects that each of my adult children remember.