Give It Away While You Can Tell Its Story

I’m still doing a lot of downsizing. (Yes, I had that much.)

Some of it was forced on me by my remodeling project. Once the furniture was moved and the old flooring came up, it seemed ridiculous to put everything back simply because it had been there before.

So I started sorting.

Keep. Family. Antique dealer. Thrift shop. Trash.

Thankfully, my family has been willing to participate. They take what they want and decline what they don’t.

That second part is just as important as the first.

I’ve sometimes heard versions of, “You’re too young to worry about your legacy. You have years before you need to think about that.”

But this isn’t really about how many years I have left. I learned that from my aunt’s passing.

There were things of Ella’s that I wanted, and she wanted me to have them. We both knew it, but we never actually made the transfer. She lived on the West Coast and I lived in Lonely Tower.

When she died, her grandson was in charge of dealing with her belongings. Things were disposed of without family members being asked what they wanted.

I got nothing.

I know he had an enormous job to do. At least I did when I emptied my oldest brother’s apartment. I made decisions on the fly and somethings didn’t go as he planned.

Those experiences stayed with me. So I’m doing things differently. If someone in my family wants something of mine, why should they have to wait? If I still want it for now I’ll keep it and tell them why.

Even better, I can tell them about it. I can say, “This belonged to my mother.” Or, “Your great-uncle Charles gave this to me.” Or, “We actually used this at Thanksgiving.”

The object isn’t the whole inheritance. The story that goes with it is part of the inheritance, too.

And if nobody wants something? That’s useful information as well.

I don’t have to keep an object for years because I’ve imagined that someday my daughter or granddaughter might treasure it. They are perfectly capable of telling me, “No, thank you.” Then I can decide where it should go next.

Some things may have enough value or interest to go to an antique dealer. Useful things can go to a thrift shop and become useful to somebody else. Some things simply need to be thrown away. And some things stay with me.

Those may be the most interesting decisions of all.

I’m not trying to strip my house of everything I’ve accumulated over a lifetime. I’m choosing what I still want around me. My antiques will fit into one cabinet. My books will have their own defined space. What remains will be there because I deliberately chose it.

That’s very different from keeping something because I’ve owned it for forty years and haven’t gotten around to deciding what to do with it.

So perhaps this isn’t really downsizing. Perhaps it’s more like editing. I’m editing my belongings and, in the process, preserving some of their stories.

And when I give something to someone I love, I don’t have to wonder whether they’ll find it someday and know that I wanted them to have it. I get to hand it to them myself.

And I get to tell them why.