Day 269 The Burden of Stuff



September 4, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)





Full yellow is good. This morning our recycling bin was overflowing, some of its contents old newspapers finally tossed out by my husband. He has a long way to go yet, but this is a start. Now if I could just stop him from taking anything that’s free, even things we have no use for.

At this point in my life, I am overwhelmed with things that we can’t take with us when we leave this world, things that will overwhelm our daughters when we are not around. A few years ago, I began going through my photos. I took a large number of mounted prints to the dump a couple years ago and am in the process of going through more prints. I have taken transparencies out of their holders and sold or given away the carousel trays. So far, I have kept only about one third of the slides I’ve reviewed. I do not want to leave this task to our daughters. They have better things to do with their lives than to deal with our clutter.

Some of our accumulated things used to belong to relatives who left us with them. We are still sorting through them.  I treasure old family photos taken before I was born or when I was growing up. These pictures are a part of family history. They stay. And some items that hold special memories remain. But hundreds of photos I took of many cats I have owned have got to be scratched.

I yearn for freedom from clutter. Maybe in another ten years?

My gift today is a full recycling bin.
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> Day 270: Relationships

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