Let It Go - Peter Walsh Page 0,21
(or your parents’) mortality by helping you better understand the memories and values you want to leave to your kids and grandkids or other heirs.
In terms of relationships, if you have a spouse or partner, the Let It Go way is intended to be a collaborative approach. The effort you make to inspect your household’s possessions—and explore the meaning they have to you individually and as a couple—can create a deeper level of intimacy and appreciation. Depending on who else is involved in the downsizing, such as parents, siblings, or children, you’re likely to find an enriched connection in these relationships, too.
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Downsize Now Rather Than Later
Speaking of mortality, if your grown children have been begging you to downsize your household, it may be because they’re worried that clutter is presenting a threat to your safety. Plenty of people wait too long to pare down their possessions, and when they’re finally ready, they realize that their health problems or physical limitations present a serious obstacle.
Taking care of it while you’re physically able is a healthy way to show your stuff who’s in charge and acknowledge that you won’t be around forever.
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And finally, as you move on to your next home, your next job, or whatever the new phase of your life might be, you’ll proceed unencumbered with meaningless or unneeded items. You’ll have less focus on the amount of your stuff and greater happiness with the quality of the treasures that surround you. The possessions you carry forward will support your daily activities, bring you joy, resurrect happy memories, say something important about you, and perhaps serve as treasured heirlooms after you’re gone.
In this process, you don’t lose anything. You gain far more than you knew was possible.
SQUEEZE ALL THE VALUE FROM YOUR POSSESSIONS THAT YOU CAN
Every possession you want to bring with you must earn its keep!
For starters, if you have a treasured item that’s linked to an important story in your mind, make a record of that memory so you’re not the only one carrying it. If you were to suddenly pass away without sharing your story, this possession becomes just another object of questionable value to your spouse or kids.
“Was this thing important to him? Are we supposed to keep it? You take it—I don’t want it!” your kids might say. But if they knew that yellowed speeding ticket from 1980 wasn’t just a piece of trash, but the reason why you were in the county clerk’s office where you first set eyes on their mother, they’d be more likely to tuck it into a scrapbook to commemorate an important moment in their lives.
This point came up during a conversation with Jennifer Lodi-Smith, PhD, an expert on how our identity evolves over the course of our lives. Keep an object “if it connects to a really important moment of your life. If you don’t have space for it, take a picture of it and write down the story of this important object; then you’ll have a digital legacy,” she suggests.
Very soon, you’ll be keeping the treasures that are extremely meaningful to you and parting with others that don’t make the cut. The following advice is critical: If a possession is important enough to keep, record its story! “Most things we keep are only important with the story. Keeping that information in the family is really key,” Dr. Lodi-Smith says. As you get into your later years, you may have more trouble recalling these stories if the importance of the object fades with time. So do it now!
Write them on a notecard so your loved ones will see them in your handwriting. Or make a minute-long digital video or sound recording, or just write 100 words on your computer and send it to the Cloud, where it won’t be lost.
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Pass Along Your Stories to Young People Who’ll Keep Telling Them
When she lived in Florida, where seniors who’ve retired and downsized to smaller homes are an abundant natural resource, Carolyn Curasi, PhD, became interested in the relationship between older adults and their possessions.
“This was something I became aware of because seniors talked about how hard it was to decide what possessions to get rid of and what to bring with them in their move to Florida,” she says.
Later in life, memories can present a problem that possessions help solve. You have decade upon decade of stories you want to remember, but your ability to recall them may fade. “I think it becomes even more