My grandmother is known as the family pack rat and in some ways so am I. I have dissected recently the vast differences between us and what makes me a functional collector and her a hoarder.
When I moved in with her she was both upset and surprised that I had many childhood mementos with me. Normal things that carry sentimental value. Things like yearbooks and award ribbons. It both upset and surprised me that she felt that way.
She had been trying to downsize her condo since she moved into it thirty years ago. She keeps everything and refuses to throw it out. She has to give away and sell anything that leaves her place. She recycles ever piece of paper and plastic. Takes frequent trips to the retirement home to drop off old cards (which she claims can be used to make crafts) she drives clear across town to the recycling plant to drop off every piece of plastic we use, she stores things til she finds a purpose for them (things like rusty nails or dollar store bouncy balls.) And though this thinking may just save the planet if a couple hundred million people joined in, it has taken over her life.
When I moved in she gripped about me having too much stuff. I looked around at my two duffel bags and two smallish cardboard boxes that contained my whole life and I thought she was crazy. I remembered back to just a few weeks before when I had given away for free and thrown away everything I own. I had no sense of regret about it either. I missed none of it and while I re organized and with tetris like zen my grandmother's brick-a-brack in my bedroom closet I thought about just throwing it all away and seeing if she would notice. I soon found out she would definitely notice.
It was strange to me the attachment she had to everyday objects. She didn't grow up in the depression she hadn't experienced extreme poverty but still here she was afraid to give up anything and regretful if she did. I heard on a regular basis how she had taken her tuberware to a garage sale and regretted it years and years later because she couldn't bring herself to replace it and she did not want to live without it. I got lecture on throwing away yogurt cups after I had eaten them. To her everything was useful and I was extremely wasteful. Things were valuable to some extent. I found a can of coins from the early 1900's and researched their value they added up to quite a large sum of money but she would not part with them. However, despite the important significance of everything nothing held a place of honor in her home. Her walls were stark white. Pictures of her family sat on tables too cluttered to see any particular one. Mementos from her childhood were stashed away and dusty and discolored.
It was all so backwards. To me it was absurd the amount of effort she took to preserve everything. She wasn't even an earth loving hippie for Christ's sake! She would keep food in the refrigerator way past its expiration date because she thought it could still be eaten. It was all so ludicrous to me. So I decided to set myself to the task of figuring out why she was this way. It was like a puzzle at first a game of logic and reasoning but the answers hit me in the face like a frying pan. They were hard to acknowledge as true but I knew they were.
My grandmother had at some point decided that material possessions could never leave you and never be taken away from you. If you placed your love, devotion and affection into them they would never turn you away or leave you for another woman or leave the house at eighteen and only call every few weeks. They would not disappoint you. They could not harm you. It was basic psychology.
All the things she owned that had memories attached to them were stowed away so she would not have to acknowledge the pain of seeing them. She felt like being wasteful was being ungrateful for the few things she had left. She felt like keeping everything and truly cherishing nothing was the only way to live. It was the only rich way to live. Why buy something better when the old one still works is a good practice of prudish money saving but indulging occasionally is not a sin. To her, though, it was. The few times she had been indulgent in her life, loving my grandfather, having children with him, moving all around the country to follow him, it had all come back to bite her in the ass. It had all hurt her. I am sure somewhere in the back of her mind she had decided to never indulge in anything that could leave her. She never wanted to form attachments to things that could hurt her. So she kept everything and loved no of it. She did it so that she could at least have more of something than anyone else. So she could be rich in some way.
When I moved in with her she was both upset and surprised that I had many childhood mementos with me. Normal things that carry sentimental value. Things like yearbooks and award ribbons. It both upset and surprised me that she felt that way.
She had been trying to downsize her condo since she moved into it thirty years ago. She keeps everything and refuses to throw it out. She has to give away and sell anything that leaves her place. She recycles ever piece of paper and plastic. Takes frequent trips to the retirement home to drop off old cards (which she claims can be used to make crafts) she drives clear across town to the recycling plant to drop off every piece of plastic we use, she stores things til she finds a purpose for them (things like rusty nails or dollar store bouncy balls.) And though this thinking may just save the planet if a couple hundred million people joined in, it has taken over her life.
When I moved in she gripped about me having too much stuff. I looked around at my two duffel bags and two smallish cardboard boxes that contained my whole life and I thought she was crazy. I remembered back to just a few weeks before when I had given away for free and thrown away everything I own. I had no sense of regret about it either. I missed none of it and while I re organized and with tetris like zen my grandmother's brick-a-brack in my bedroom closet I thought about just throwing it all away and seeing if she would notice. I soon found out she would definitely notice.
It was strange to me the attachment she had to everyday objects. She didn't grow up in the depression she hadn't experienced extreme poverty but still here she was afraid to give up anything and regretful if she did. I heard on a regular basis how she had taken her tuberware to a garage sale and regretted it years and years later because she couldn't bring herself to replace it and she did not want to live without it. I got lecture on throwing away yogurt cups after I had eaten them. To her everything was useful and I was extremely wasteful. Things were valuable to some extent. I found a can of coins from the early 1900's and researched their value they added up to quite a large sum of money but she would not part with them. However, despite the important significance of everything nothing held a place of honor in her home. Her walls were stark white. Pictures of her family sat on tables too cluttered to see any particular one. Mementos from her childhood were stashed away and dusty and discolored.
It was all so backwards. To me it was absurd the amount of effort she took to preserve everything. She wasn't even an earth loving hippie for Christ's sake! She would keep food in the refrigerator way past its expiration date because she thought it could still be eaten. It was all so ludicrous to me. So I decided to set myself to the task of figuring out why she was this way. It was like a puzzle at first a game of logic and reasoning but the answers hit me in the face like a frying pan. They were hard to acknowledge as true but I knew they were.
My grandmother had at some point decided that material possessions could never leave you and never be taken away from you. If you placed your love, devotion and affection into them they would never turn you away or leave you for another woman or leave the house at eighteen and only call every few weeks. They would not disappoint you. They could not harm you. It was basic psychology.
All the things she owned that had memories attached to them were stowed away so she would not have to acknowledge the pain of seeing them. She felt like being wasteful was being ungrateful for the few things she had left. She felt like keeping everything and truly cherishing nothing was the only way to live. It was the only rich way to live. Why buy something better when the old one still works is a good practice of prudish money saving but indulging occasionally is not a sin. To her, though, it was. The few times she had been indulgent in her life, loving my grandfather, having children with him, moving all around the country to follow him, it had all come back to bite her in the ass. It had all hurt her. I am sure somewhere in the back of her mind she had decided to never indulge in anything that could leave her. She never wanted to form attachments to things that could hurt her. So she kept everything and loved no of it. She did it so that she could at least have more of something than anyone else. So she could be rich in some way.
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