Recently my siblings and I cleaned out our elderly mother’s house to get it ready to sell. Mom had reluctantly moved into a retirement community after falling twice in a six-month period. The onus for cleaning out the house fell on the three of us and, with the help of a couple of our children, we managed to get it done in just a few grueling, intense days.
The work was physically taxing but also emotionally taxing for me as my mother seemed unable to part with anything. She had lived in her house for over 30 years and it seemed she hadn’t gotten rid of anything. Nor did it appear she had gotten rid of anything in the 30 years prior to moving into that house! The job was daunting and her emotional response was painful. We didn’t let her join us at the house as we knew her presence would render the process impossible. She simply wouldn’t have let us give or throw away anything!
In the months since we finished the job she has asked over and over about different items. My brother, sister and I have found her attachment to ‘things’ both curious and unsettling. How, we wonder, can someone be so attached to ‘stuff.’
After having the experience of cleaning out her house, I vowed never to do the same thing to my children and decided to begin the process of purging my own home of unnecessary stuff. Last weekend my husband and I started to clean out our garage. He pulled box after box from the rafters in the garage. I couldn’t imagine what we had put up there years ago and started to sort through the boxes. There were things our children might actually treasure some day: diplomas, photos, memorabilia of our youth. We decided to keep those things.
One box was particularly heavy and when I opened the lid I found it packed full of old training manuals from my first ‘professional’ job at Taco Bell, Inc. I had landed the job as soon as I finished my Master’s Degree. I was 24 years old, cocky, and looked to a bright professional future. The job I held was created so that my boss could justify hiring me with no experience. I was quickly promoted and given hefty raises. I was in my element and took on the most challenging assignments in the department. Now, years later the only physical remnants of that time were the manuals I had painstakingly written and neatly organized in a cardboard box.
I decided to put them in the garbage. What did I need with old Taco Bell training manuals? Who would look at them? Who would care? Of what use could they possibly be? None. They were obsolete, useless and taking up valuable space. I carried them to the curb. Later, I noticed the box resting precariously on top of a large plastic garbage can full of unnecessary, unwanted trash.
The next morning as I was pouring my second cup of coffee I heard the loud rumbling of the garbage truck heading toward my house. For an instant I felt the urge to rush to the curb and rescue my valuable training manuals from a landfill. Wait, I thought…those manuals are all I have left. Those manuals represent the person I was, the life I lived, the professional I planned to be. When they are gone, so are those days! I can’t let them be tossed out like garbage!
I stood at the counter, drank my coffee, planted my feet, and calmed my soul. The truck arrived. The box of manuals was unceremoniously placed with the coffee grounds, cat litter and other refuse of my neighbors and, without a moment of hesitation, the truck pulled away from the curb on to the next house.
My manuals were gone.
But the manuals were just the physical evidence of those former days. They didn’t represent what I had learned, how I had grown, or who I am today. They were merely the tangible product of the work I had done. Work for an organization that, today, given my convictions, I couldn’t work for at all!
The manuals were gone. For a few minutes I thought about how getting rid of that one box had stirred my soul and brought to light the passing of an era in my life. I thought about how my mother must have felt when most of her 81 years met a similar fate. And, in my next thought I realized how freeing it was to let go of something that no longer had meaning to anyone. Including me. Yes, those were good years and yes I had many accomplishments in those years. But those years were the building blocks to today and my ‘todays’ are the building block to tomorrow. Do I really need ‘stuff’ to remind me of who I am? Do I really need ‘things’ to represent the person I’ve become?
No.
My moment of panic, when I heard the garbage truck pull up, helped me understand my mom a little better but ultimately having the manuals dumped freed me of the need to hold on to things that have little to no meaning. What matters are the people I love, the souls that have intersected with mine, the person I am and the person I’m still learning to be.
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