Collecting, hoarding, squirrelling call it what you like but we all do it. Some collect diamonds and pearls - understandable, others collect stamps, cards or event memorabilia. What ever it is it needs storage. Put it in boxes, drawers, cupboards or bags it all needs to be somewhere. Under the stairs, in the loft or in a shed or garage, it all stacks up over the years until one day…
Yes it’s decision day. For whatever reason, age, infirmity, moving house or change of life, the ‘stuff’ must go - but where to? Cash it in at a car boot or garage sale, take it to a charity shop or just take it to the tip! There are choices but they are all difficult as parting with your memories and treasures is hard. Perhaps better done by a dispassionate relative, friend or even a contractor. The choice is yours. Maybe you think that you are able to handle this but that might just be bravado. It hurts passing things on that you have treasured throughout your life. There should perhaps be counselling services or therapy as it’s usually older people who are faced with these sort of challenges. If you’re lucky enough to have relatives to do it for you on the basis that they can take and keep anything they like as long as everything disappears. That might prove tempting.
What do you do with stamp or coin collections, CDs, DVDs, cassettes, redundant players and cameras that you always though would be worth keeping. Cables that used to fit every imageable orifice but fitted with with plugs no longer recognised by any latest IT gadget. Software hoarding. Every edition since introduction from the 1980s. all dud and completely useless. Why then is it still in a drawer? Vinyl records stored away for years are on the comeback trail we’re told. Probably copies amongst millions surviving in other hoards. Worth anything? Probably not. Floppy discs, mini discs it just goes on and on. An absolute nightmare.
Die, and it will probably all go in a skip - the easy way out perhaps, but that just leaves your mess for someone else to clean up,
The car boot, jumble or garage sale solutions, or by just trying to give it away. You’ll struggle, and although cathartic, it will be a lot of effort with little reward save the peace of mind you may get from shedding the load or cumbersome shell that you created for yourself. Dickens Marley comes to mind when his ghost tells Scrooge that what he formed in life was ‘…a ponderous chain’ Ebenezer.
Whatever you do most of us will face this challenge at some time in your life so why not start early and save yourself the heartache? Easier said than done perhaps,