Unhealthy Attachments

[Boxlicker101]

I've moved often, so I tend to get carried away with preparing to travel light. I'm constantly getting rid of extra stuff, and it's backfired once or twice. I had a weekend to help my mom get rid of some things in her basement before she moved, tons of toys and dolls that had been mine and my sister's, and it was such an emotional time coming as it did a few months after my dad's death that I didn't have the presence of mind to keep any of my childhood things. Didn't want or need any more sentiment, or so I thought....Not that it's a bad thing to party with your Betsy McCall dolls, but don't watch Antique Roadshow on TV and learn that the two of them were each worth upwards of $2,000.

I learned too late that all those stuffed animals and beloved dolls that I donated to the Salvation Army would end up in the hands of collectors, who will pay for even broken parts of certain toys. The Kewpie doll. The Mickey Mouse rubber squeaky doll.

Actually, if you have ever thrown away anything old, it's a good idea to stay away from Antique Roadshow.

We have a Roy Rogers Ranch set with tin ranch house that belonged to my sister and me when we were kids, and my nephew loved it when he was little. He chewed the legs off of some of the cowboys and horses, and I thought that was cute until I found out what the set would have been worth intact.

MG: You won't be officially old until your childhood toys show up on Antiques Roadshow.

I certainly know what you mean. When I was much younger and had a lot more hair, I also had a vast accumulation of baseball cards. Among others, I had some Mickey Mantle cards from his rookie year. They didn't have "rookie cards" as such but on these, he was listed as a Yankee outfielder, on 24 hour option to Kansas City, which was a minor league Yankee farm team at the time. Those cards alone would be worth a pile of money and the entire collection would be worth millions now. When I went out on my own, at 17, I had no more interest in then, and hadn't had any for some time, so the whole collection provided a few BTU's of heat one cold winter morning.

 

[Guest]

Actually, if you have ever thrown away anything old, it's a good idea to stay away from Antique Roadshow.

Yeah, I might have scored there. I had Madame Alexander dolls which stayed in the box all my life, Mom would only let me visit them occasionally. Also had my very first toy and Kewpie dolls, lovely metal dollhouse painted in trompe 'loile (sp?), etc. My bros. had electric train and erector sets.

yawn, Perdita

 

[Boxlicker101]

Aww Boxlicker..thankyou so much that is a great compliment!

I'm about 2/3 done with the story now, and the name will be "I Call on Julia". Most of my stories have names very similar to that. "Julia" seemed to be as good a name as any but I will change it if you want. At the present, I expect to submit it tomorrow but I don't know how long it will take to post. If you want, I can PM what I have but I must warn you: It is a very dirty story.

Edited Jan. 13

I submitted the story yesterday. I don't know how long it will take to post, a week or so, probably. I can still make changes.

 

[Mhari]

I'm a huge packrat, too. But my solution has only ever been to move. When I see the huge piles of crap that I have to lug to the new place, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to get rid of it! I don't think I've ever regretted any of the stuff I've gotten rid of that way.

I do dread having to clean out my parents' house (a day I hope will somehow never come anyway). They have so much stuff that it's just frightening. I suspect they could open a library themselves just with the books and magazines in the house. And it goes on from there.

They haven't moved since 1961.

 

[Guest]

 

[sweetnpetite]

There's that show on cable now where professional organizers come to people's houses to get rid of the clutter. They make the people put everything in the house outside on the lawn and then go through things one by one and make them make a conscious choice about what they're going to keep.

It's terrifying to think of doing that: like some Nazi nightmare.

There's a law I've discovered: whenever you get rid of something, no matter how goofy or useless it is, within a month you'll find that you need it for something.

That's why I have such a happy basement.

---dr.M.

So far all this thread has done is made me even more paranoid about throwing anything out and reinforced my bad habits. Thanks a lot Dr. M!!!!




ps, to all who suggest paying for extra space- my pockets are empty. (and what happens to all your mail when you stop paying?) I really don't *need* to have more mail than I have room for. I just don't know how to get rid of it

 

[sweetnpetite]

There's that show on cable now where professional organizers come to people's houses to get rid of the clutter. They make the people put everything in the house outside on the lawn and then go through things one by one and make them make a conscious choice about what they're going to keep.

It's terrifying to think of doing that: like some Nazi nightmare.

.
---dr.M.

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! Not my stuuuuuuuuuuufffffffff!!!!!




Don't watch it before bedtime!

 

[Edward Teach]

I have such a hard time letting go- even my free yahoo email is full. Does anyone else have this problem? Or a solution????

Just open a whole bunch more Yahoo accounts and organize them by letter name as a filing system. For example: A_filecab@yahoo.com, B_filecab@yahoo.com, etc.

Then forward all your emails to the appropriate accounts and delete them from your main. Your main stays empty and you have all your old emails saved and organized.

Now when you want to look up old MadAlbert's email from 1997, all you have to do is remember whether you forwarded it to the M's or the A's.

Ever helpful,

- Ed

 

[sweetnpetite]

I've seen that programme..or an english version of it...and wow..some of the stuff people kept..i remember one lady who had so many clothes and shoes...and in one of her boots they found a dead mouse!!!!eeek!


I am naturally a hoarder but i am learning to let go of more and more things....its not easy and i don't think i could tell others how to do it but i think that you need a point of realisation. For me it was when my old house was burgled as we were moving and several boxes of my stuff was taken. I've nevr really missed it. That taught me a lesson I think.

I lost a lot of stuff in a storage shed when I fell behind on the payments. You'd think I would have leared from that!

I don't know what was in that shed- but I miss my stuff!! (That's how you know a girl's got a problem.)

 

[sweetnpetite]

I'm a huge packrat, too. But my solution has only ever been to move. When I see the huge piles of crap that I have to lug to the new place, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to get rid of it! I don't think I've ever regretted any of the stuff I've gotten rid of that way.

I do dread having to clean out my parents' house (a day I hope will somehow never come anyway). They have so much stuff that it's just frightening. I suspect they could open a library themselves just with the books and magazines in the house. And it goes on from there.

They haven't moved since 1961.

There is no way that they could even compare with my parents! The rooms that arent' piles to the ceiling (like my old bedroom, now storage) look absolutley like a flea market. Every surface is covered with nicknacks, pictures, and doo-dads. (and they have lots of surfaces- shelves, tables, drawers ect)

hmmm, wonder where I get this from???

 

[sweetnpetite]

Re: Re: Unhealthy Attachments

Just open a whole bunch more Yahoo accounts and organize them by letter name as a filing system. For example: A_filecab@yahoo.com, B_filecab@yahoo.com, etc.

Then forward all your emails to the appropriate accounts and delete them from your main. Your main stays empty and you have all your old emails saved and organized.

Now when you want to look up old MadAlbert's email from 1997, all you have to do is remember whether you forwarded it to the M's or the A's.

Ever helpful,

- Ed

And don't forget to keep a list and be sure to visit each e-mail once a month or so- otherwise you risk loosing everything you've stored there!

 

[Edward Teach]

Re: Re: Re: Unhealthy Attachments

And don't forget to keep a list and be sure to visit each e-mail once a month or so- otherwise you risk loosing everything you've stored there!

Uh, well, yeah, it takes a little extra time but you don't lose all those emails you may need some day.

 

[shereads]

There's that show on cable now where professional organizers come to people's houses to get rid of the clutter. They make the people put everything in the house outside on the lawn and then go through things one by one and make them make a conscious choice about what they're going to keep.

It's terrifying to think of doing that: like some Nazi nightmare.

Despite the over-reaction to my mom's move and the valuable things I got rid of, I actually love the feeling of being free of stuff and clutter.


We moved time and again when I was a kid, and I watched my poor mom go through the packing-and-unpacking mess so many times I wondered, did we really need that many knick-knacks and throw rugs and table lamps and the extra set of dishes that never gets used, and the stacks of carefully folded tableclothes that fit a table that's no longer in the family?

I have always felt claustrophobic when surrounded by too many belongings, maybe because the constant moves of military life gave me a permanent sense of impermanence.



One of the most stressful things in my marriage was his need to packrat and fill our home with useless things that he couldn't bear to part with. I love blank walls and minimally furnished rooms - He had files from advertising clients he had had fifteen years before we met, and he moved them from his old home to our new one without a thought of getting rid of them. We had a "guest room" that couldn't be used for guests because the path to the bed from the unpacked boxes was too narrow to negotiate in the dark. My mom practically had a panic attack trying to make her way from the bed to the hallway to go to the bathroom during the night.

I'm terribly disorganized, but have a method of cleaning my desk that I also apply to my home: If I don't know what's at the bottom of the pile of papers, it means I haven't looked at it in four weeks and its expendable. if I don't hve the time or energy to use the shredder - my favorite toy! - I dump anything official-looking into a bag and put some garbage in it, so it will be too distasteful for all but the most determined identity thief to go through.

Since my most recent move, from a small apartment to an even smaller house, I know what I own that's worth keeping, and those things I can grab and run with if there's a fire: the dog, my dad's camera, my grandfather's WWI Army binoculars, and my Celexa.

It's lifted quite a burden, traveling light. And aside from the debacle with the childhood toy giveaway, I've never once regretted anything I got rid of.

 

[SummerMorning]

Only thing I ever really regreted having to leave behind were our three dogs.

After you leave something like that behind - living, feeling creatures that you have an emotional attachment to (and no, the palm trees do not count, tho' I miss them too) - stuff loses its meaning.

That's not to say I don't like my books and cds, but that's what a library is for.