Hoarding

I realized a while back that I was trained to be a hoarder.

Each of my older relatives: parents, aunts, grandparents - wanted to know what I collected.  I had to have an answer.  Otherwise I was an incomplete person and buying birthday gifts for me would have been unnecessarily tricky.

So. I began to think of things I would like to collect.  Here is a sample: tea cups, old books, Belle Barbie dolls, candles, pens.

In addition to "collecting", people set me an example of saving things in case I would need them, or my children might want to.

Books romanticized saving, describing heroines discovering forgotten treasures stored in attics.

We went to garage sales and learned that items have resale value.  Why throw them away when your kids can auction them for profit at an estate sale in a hundred years when you're dead?

The Antiques Road Show showcased items whose value appreciated the longer you saved them.

So, when I tell myself I don't need something; when I drop off a load of things at the Goodwill, and don't even get paid for them; when I evaluate which things in my possession I would actually want to save from a fire, and find a rather short list of necessities - I'm doing pretty well, overcoming this narrative of hoarding.

I'm trying to get better at being a simple, more-Millennial person.  I have friends who teach and encourage me.  And now, since I've identified all these influences, I can devise a rebuttal:

As my friend says, "We collect friends, not things."  Another friend says that "Stores are for storing things."  I don't even have an attic, and it is not quite so romantic to think of finding treasures in the trunk of my car.  My last three garage sales taught me that the time and work it takes to sell my own junk yields a low hourly wage.  Antiques Roadshow has started airing episodes where they show how much the item's appraised value has changed, from the original airing to the rerun, and a lot of them have gone down.  (Beanie Babies are not a craze anymore.)

I don't know if there is a moral reason to hoard or not, but here was a glimpse into my journey to becoming less encumbered.

To God be all glory.