I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one my age going through what I consider “a thing” – condensation trepidation. Or, in plainspeak (or is it mansplaining these days?) absorbing a parent’s or grandparent’s belongings into yours.

I consider myself fortunate because I have several siblings that can share in this process. But here is the real issue – I’m trying to go through my own stuff at the same time! There are clothes forgotten in plastic containers in the basement that need to be tried on (ugh!) and relegated to the donation or keep piles.  There are stacks of books, manuscripts, craft supplies and other miscellaneous items collected over my sixty years of life. And if I’m being totally honest, I am still in possession of a dozen boxes from bother sets of grandparents that should be inspected with a critical eye.

All this raises another question? Do I really want my son to have to shovel through my crap/stuff a couple decades from now? Should  he have to decide about items from great- grandparents he never met? No, I do not.

By the evidence before me, over 50 boxes labeled with precious and not so precious items, I must face the fact that I have inherited the packrat gene from my father. Oh, and to be fair, from my Uncle Gene – my mother’s brother. We kids get it from both sides of the family quite honestly.

My father saved every issue of Model Railroader Magazine, Automobile Quarterly, and any other number or periodicals that pertained to cars, trains, planes, and guns. The tools are easy to stare at and formulate a plan – but the nuts, bolts washers and screws collected in his lifetime are another matter completely.

There are little gems like the original receipts for his 1948 MG-TC for $1071 in 1955, or the Boy Scout vase signed by the boys in his Scout Troop when he moved onto other projects. You can hold it, smile and wrap the vase in bubble wrap. Just a sweet moment of a memory and then it’s back to sorting and packing.

These gems fail to abate our (okay, my) feelings of being overwhelmed by all of it.

If I channel my dormant (comatose) inner Marie Kondo, the reigning De-clutter Queen, and ask myself if this vase makes me happy, it’s hard to say – it’s the knowledge of who owned this vase that makes me happy.  If I donate something to a resale shop will the person buy it knowing it was a treasured item that somehow failed to make the “keep” list? It’s like having Marie Kondo one shoulder, and the pack rat devil on the other. What’s a sentimental sap like myself to do?

In the coming weeks, all of the siblings will gather to determine what we are saving, who gets what and what gets donated. Perhaps then I will have more motivation to complete my own task that at most times is as overwhelming as going through my father’s.

Disclaimer: I have several boxes in an attic containing items from both sets of grandparents’.

#condensationtrepidation

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