Stuff.
Every family needs a "keeper" and a "thrower." I am the family "thrower," but I am bad at it.
My wife and I are "empty-nesters." We have a house that is theoretically far too big. In fact, it is not big enough. We have stuff and aren't ready to give it up yet.
I got a priceless lesson when I helped my 95-year-old friend die with a clear conscience. "I don't want to leave a mess for you to clean up," he said. He lived in a 500 square foot unit in an assisted-living facility. "No problem," I told him. I said there wasn't much to deal with and I could easily find a good home for everything.
I brought his clothes to St.Vincent dePaul and to Goodwill. He had some stuff he was sure was valuable. The motorized power chair that he bought 20 years ago works fine and it cost him $6,000 when new. He said I should be sure to sell it back to the place he bought it, and to get a good price.
They offered me $75, if I delivered it. It weighs over 200 pounds. His assisted-living facility agreed to keep it as a donation and to offer it to some resident whose mobility stepped down from walker to power chair. I consider it a good home. It turns out that electronic pianos are hard to sell, too.
The vast majority of the stuff my friend owned consisted of things of value to him, but had no practical value to anyone else, and certainly no monetary value. He had artistic wood carvings he picked up in gift shops on vacations over the years. He had old glitchy kitchen appliances, with broken lids and sticky buttons. There is no real market for 20-year-old electronic equipment. He had keepsakes. His veteran discharge paperwork was useful for documenting his veteran status, but most of his photos were images of pets he loved 40 years ago.
My job was to empty out his apartment so that the assisted-living place would not keep charging him $250/day. I am trying to sell the piano. I brought most of the rest of his stuff to the dump. I kept some things. That was the two-part lesson for me. One is that most of what we accumulate is junk to anyone else. I am trying to get that through my head. The second is that, even knowing that, we continue to accumulate stuff. I took some of his keepsakes. Some of his old photos. A mirror he had. A hundred copies of the sheet music he made for a Christmas song he wrote but could not get published. "Be sure to keep the rights to the song, Peter. Store that copyright notice someplace safe." So now I have added his accumulated stuff to my accumulated stuff.
In the burst of clarity from this experience, I bundled up the hundred or so vinyl record albums that I accumulated during my college years. It was a trial run. I gave them to a friend who said he would try to sell them on line. He said that if they wouldn't sell he would toss them. I looked fondly at the cover of the Beatles' White Album and the one from the first Chicago album, from back when they called themselves Chicago Transit Authority. "What goes up, must go down, spinning wheel. . . ." The song went through my head. I know that if and when I wanted to listen to the song I would click on a streaming version of it. I would never fuss with acquiring a turntable and setting up speakers. Worse, the emotion I felt looking at the album covers was more sadness than joy. The girlfriend I listened to records with in my dorm room died from colon cancer a few years ago.
I have lots of melon-themed art. No one wants that but me. I have life-size portraits of myself and my wife. More stuff. They are too big to hang anywhere but in a house this size, and nobody in their right mind wants huge paintings of me in a business suit in any house. More future junk.
Part of the housing problem in America is caused by people like me. The house I live in would be appropriate for a growing family of four kids. Maybe five kids. I should make room for them by selling it to them at an affordable price. But there aren't many of those families anymore. And the only people who can afford too-big houses are other empty nesters who would like this house because of all the storage space.
Besides, this house isn't for sale. We would have to get rid of stuff. I wouldn't want it junked. It would be disrespectful to its memory. I would want it all to go to a good home. But the only good home for it is this one.
I cleaned out both of my parents' homes and I am struggling not to pass this "gift" along to my younger siblings. But the books, oh the books. I decided (since I still have a turntable) I would play each of my records once. If they don't skip, I will offer them up to the universe and toss them if necessary. But the books nobody wants - not even used book sellers for the most part. I am not going to spend what little time I have left babysitting Ebay and going to the post office every day. Yikes. If you sit still too long, it just piles up around you. I am currently enrolled in TWO online courses on how to let go of your junk. Hopefully one will work!
Many people collect old record albums. If they are in good shape, there should be many interested buyers.