When the Balance is Tipped

I’ve had this thought that life is in balance when you have enough space for all of your belongings- a drawer, a hanger, a closet, a shelf. But once you have more stuff than you have room for, the balance has been tipped-and the moment you start collecting things that you have no place for-there is an tangible element of discomfort.

I understand now why Aunt Rose, after a certain age, never wanted a gift for Christmas or her birthday- she and my Uncle Jim would buy each memberships to PBS and enjoy their time together appreciating the broadcasts. A lovely gift indeed.

I was cleaning out some closets this past week-wondering how things accumulate- they say we spend the first half of our lives collecting things and the second half trying to release them. It is amazing how closets and storage areas fill up over the years- for me, too many books and too much clothing- boxes of excess. Yet some things are just too precious to let go of. 

Growing up with parents who lived through World War II and the depression, you’re taught that everything has value- bread bags, bread tags, empty plastic jugs, extra buttons, nails, pieces of wood, toilet paper rolls – some took on new uses and others became craft items- and each was a treasure. We used to save buttons in an old mayonnaise jar- and I thought it was goldmine. We’d have fun for hours making button spinners. And on my father’s dresser there was an old tuna fish can, spray painted white with a tiny red bow where he kept his loose change. It was a Father’s Day gift we made in school. These were our treasures.

I thought about my mother’s attic in the home where we all grew up-and I can’t think of a single box of her excess up there. In my parent’s room they each had a small closet, a dresser- his was tall hers was long- and a nightstand. Everything they had or needed fit right there. The shelves above her closet held family photo albums and little treasures. How did it all fit I wondered?

Why are closets today the size of bowling alleys? And though we didn’t have the resources for “more” we also didn’t have the need for it! What we had was just enough. Houses were small, closets were small, I’m not sure there was a single bathroom with a double sink – I guess we all just had to learn to share.

If the attic filled, it was with the residue of raising 6 kids- LP’s, old toys, holiday finery. We each had our own Easter basket stored year to year-and an old carboard black cat that hung on our front door every Halloween. I can remember pulling down those attic stairs each holiday to unearth these treasures. The basement, that is where the canning jars waited filled with summer’s bounty and even a few canning jars filled with my father’s tuna. There were tools and paint cans and large seine nets that my father was sewing- strung from the water pipes. We had metal clip-on roller skates with skate keys and we would race about the cement floor spinning with our elbows around the lally columns.

In my newfound re-retirement, I find myself overwhelmed by ‘too much stuff’.  The fire of wanting less is burning within. The days of simple joy and having enough seem to be disappearing. As our churches empty our closets fill – as prices go up value seems to go down- as we have more things, we spend less time together. Unfortunately, I too am guilty as charged. It’s time to find that balance once again!