Day 18: So much stuff

The older I get, the more I think about the life cycle of my stuff.

I’ve been helping a friend clean up her house as she prepares to list it this week. It’s been rented to a family for over a year, and they left it clean-ish. They didn’t leave it empty. We’ve been going through the junk. Rubber ducks, an old iPad cover, broken headphones, and a rancid, large container of ghee.

There was a pair of brand-new shoes, a graduation photo, and a basketball. We still need to sort through what can be donated and what needs to be recycled. A lot will end up in landfill.

At one point, we needed to get bulbs to replace the many burned-out ones in fixtures that had never been replaced. We drove to Marden’s Surplus & Salvage.The volume of inventory made me aware of how much stuff we produce, buy, use briefly, and eventually throw away.

There is so much junk in our lives. We have junk drawers in our homes. Some people even have junk rooms. There are entire shows on managing junk. There is an industry around organizing the stuff you don’t use.

I almost bought a pair of shoes at Marden’s for $3.00. I didn’t need them. I hadn’t wanted them before I got in the store. But I walked around the store trying on things and piling them in my cart, lulled in by how affordable things were.

One of the things I think a lot about is what will happen to my stuff when I die. I don’t want my son and daughter sorting through piles of crap, wondering whether to keep it, donate it, or bin it. I think about that more and more when I am tempted to buy something.

No matter how good the price, there is an additional cost.