My Relationship With Stuff

Today my co-worker Denise pointed out this post on the unimportance of stuff. This was my favorite line:

 I chose not to mourn stuff and save all my sorrow for people. 

My family has always been rather divided on the importance of stuff. There are some of us who hold items very near and dear and are devestated if anything happens to them because the stuff reminds them so much of a good memory or a lost beloved. And then there are others of us -- like me -- who delight in getting rid of stuff and actively work toward not forming attachments to it.

I wasn't always like this. I had very stong attachments to stuff as a child and young adult. A few months after my grandparents died, my roommate in Chicago threw away a blanket from their house. (He claims it was an accident; I claim it was part of his oversight issues.) I freaked out on him. FREAKED OUT. I remember spending hours searching through all sorts of apartments and houses when I would randomly remember a possession and didn't know where it was. Oh, how I cried when I couldn't find (insert possession here -- there were many). I was very, very, very upset a few years ago when I lost my wedding ring. I kept my grandmother's extensive shoe collection for years after she died, even though I never wore one pair. I used to carry a day planner around in Chicago filled with quotes and pictures and cards -- one of my friends actually expressed amazement that I would haul around so much with me every day. I couldn't imagine going anywhere without it.

Somewhere along the line, I became concerned about my attachments to stuff, especially my writing. I made back-ups of back-ups (and still do) and worried so much about what would happen if I lost all those poems and short stories and novels. Right now I have all my notes on my next novel in one notebook that I have ferreted away behind my printer. I haven't typed them up anywhere, and it would be pretty bad if I lost that notebook. 

But I'm actively working on not forming an attachment to it, or to those exact notes. I'm not ready to start that novel yet, not when the one I'm on is out with editors now.

I think it was my grandparents' blanket that got me. Before I left Chicago, I sold the antique three-quarters bed of my grandmother's that I'd been sleeping on to a friend. I realized the depth of my despair over the blanket was really my grief for the people I loved so much. Their stuff is just their stuff, even the stuff made by them. I love the stuff, I cherish the stuff, I place the stuff in positions of honor around my house and celebrate the stuff, but I actively work not to get too attached to the stuff, because something could happen. A tornado. A fire. Just an accident in which said stuff gets broken. A robbery. I just don't ever want to feel that hurt by the absence of a thing again. 

I understand this is just me working against my anxiety, and it's  perfectly fine for other people to feel a different way about stuff. My daughter is so attached to her stuffed animals that she mourned a bunny she gave away for months until I finally asked for it back from the neighbor and offered to replace it with something else. She's displaying a super-strong attachment to stuff, and who knows, maybe she will always feel that way. That's not wrong, and I won't discourage her from attaching to stuff. Especially when you're a kid, I think it's really helpful to have comfort objects.

I'm constantly reminding myself every time the sky turns green that the Corolla was just stuff, and now I have Vicki the convertible. If something happened to Vicki, something else would appear in her place. If my computer's hard drive gets wiped or I lose that notebook behind my printer, my writer mind will come up with a new story, maybe a story even better. I can't worry about losing things all the time. I have to trust I can create anew every lost story, I can replace every lost possession, I can grow and change to fit any new scenario. My people have to be the most important, and all my energy is going into them, because they cannot be replaced.

I will save my sorrow for them.