One thing I struggled with for many years, as a side effect of cutting contact with my mother, was the fact that I still had a lot of personal property in her house. For so long, I mourned and lamented what I thought was a significant loss of my possessions and all the memories and emotional ties held therein. It’s not that I’m a material person, but I’m a sentimental person. It is just stuff — but it’s my stuff, and I was convinced I’d never see any of it again. Indeed, I didn’t know how much of it was even still there, because there was certainly the possibility that my mother (or other people who’ve gone in and out of that house) would have gotten rid of stuff that belonged to me, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Following an extraordinary and fortunate set of circumstances, earlier this year I regained possession of my belongings. For the last several months, the fifteen or so tote bins have been sitting in my house, untouched, because I thought (and my therapist agreed, and we were right) that it would be emotionally taxing to go through the contents of those bins, and therefore it would be best to wait until school was out for summer and I had more free time and more free emotional bandwidth for the task. I finally started working through stuff this week, which has been good because we’re having a yard sale this weekend! Normally I would write about this as one part at a time, but I neglected to write part 1 in a more timely fashion before part 2 happened. It’s been challenging, like literally taking stock of my life.

Anyway, here are some notes about my Stuff Process, parts 1 and 2:

Part 1:

Most of my stuff is very specifically labeled to indicate the contents of each bin (thanks, younger me). But there was one cardboard box and one bin which were both unlabeled, so I started there on Monday of this week. It turned out, most of what was in here were old CDs, but there were also some random old photos in frames, and that wasn’t easy to contend with. The frames were not in great shape and I didn’t want to keep most of the photos either, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Finally I decided to take pictures using my phone of those photos, and then toss out what I wasn’t keeping. One thing I was glad to find was a mixed media picture I painted many years ago and have always wanted to reclaim from my mother. It needs reframing but is otherwise still pristine, which is a relief. I also found a huge bag of what looks like costume jewelry, and some old tee shirts that I can either toss out or cut out patches of the important parts and then add to my tee shirt patchwork quilt.

The most difficult discovery in this bin was the box full of Christmas ornaments from when I was a very young child. I don’t know what I should do with these, as they’re very precious to me and I can’t fathom throwing them out, but I also obviously have no practical use for them. Fortunately, one of the strategies my therapist and I came up with was to have space in which to put things that I wasn’t ready to process yet. These ornaments fit that bill, and they may fit that bill more than anything else I come across among the twelve-ish large bins I have left. It’s funny to me, because that’s the strategy I use with my daughter when she is tidying up her toys; if she isn’t sure where to put something, rather than get stuck on it, we have an “I don’t know” bin for things that we aren’t sure what to do with. Now that I realize how helpful this approach can be for others besides my five-year-old, I’m thinking of implementing it in my classrooms next year too! Anyway, as such, I threw out a significant portion of what I found in this box and bin but returned some of it to the bin to contend with later, especially since some items might actually belong to my brother.

It should be noted that not only was this emotionally taxing, it was physically very challenging. I say this partly because of the lifting and sorting, but more so because everything reeked of cigarette smoke.

Part 2:

Today I went through two bins that I thought would be the most difficult of all. Normally I would have procrastinated and put those off until last. But because we’re having a yard sale this weekend and I thought I might be able to sell some of the contents of these bins, I had to bite the bullet and get through it. So I did.

I collected snowglobes as a child, teenager, and young adult, and amassed a set of 54 globes of varying themes and sizes by the time I moved out of my bedroom at my mother’s house and opted to pack all of them up. (Actually, I think the collection amounted closer to 58, because I did keep out a couple that have moved with me from one apartment to another apartment to my current house I share with my husband. But I digress.) I packed all the snowglobes very carefully into two purple bins; all of my other possessions were packed into grey bins, except for a neon green bin full of family photos, so the snowglobe bins were very distinct and identifiable. This collection was very important to me growing up; I have memories and relationships connected with nearly every single one of the snowglobes. It was my souvenir of choice if I traveled anywhere, and it was an easy gift idea for me for any holiday.

I noticed when I opened these bins that while there was still a smoky odor, it was far less pronounced, and I believe that’s because these bins were well closed and set away from being on the receiving end of said smoke. This gives me high hopes for the bins that spent years out in the shed where no cigarette smoke would have touched them at all.

Having expected these bins to be emotionally impactful, I am a little surprised that I worked through them all with efficiency and didn’t linger too long on any feelings they may have brought up. There’s a solid chance the feelings may catch up with me later. Out of 54 snowglobes in these bins, I selected only 14 total that I wanted to keep, including my very first one and the ones I bought as souvenirs from a trip to Disney World and Sea World with a friend when I was 15 or 16. Another 30, I hope to sell, and many of these are Christmas themed which I don’t have any qualms about letting go of. A number of other ones were dragon themed; I’d forgotten I used to be really into dragons too! I did keep my favorite one of those.

Ten of them were either broken or had become grossly discolored, and not necessarily because of smoke. Apparently, older snow globes are filled with distilled water and can grow algae which would make the water murky with too much exposure to heat or sunlight. The internet says this could be fixable, but I don’t think I’m that motivated. I’m pretty sure (though not positive) that the ones I put in the trash box are not ones that carry too much sentimental value, and therefore if I were to fix them in order to sell them, that’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Honestly, I feel good about paring down this collection so significantly; the ones I’m keeping are ones that truly matter to me. I don’t yet have a place in my house to display them, but I’ll work on that at some point.

Going through the snowglobe bins didn’t make me teary or emotional. It actually made me thoughtful, rueful even. The collection reminded me of some things about myself that I’d forgotten, interests I used to have that I hadn’t thought about in decades. It’s making me wonder what else I’ve lost about myself.

I guess I’ll find out as I go through more of my stuff. Stay tuned for more parts of the Stuff Process to come over the course of this summer.