Stuff

An unexpected defense of sentimental clutter

I’ve never been someone who has a lot of “stuff”. I’m not a minimalist, though I wish I was, I yearn to be, the way I yearn to be an Enneagram 3 or a published author or a woman who instinctively knows how to work a curling iron. But alas, I am here, a stubborn Enneagram 8, the author of a book with no home, the possessor of slightly fried hair with a weird crinkle at the ends that I can never get right.

When it comes to stuff, there are a few things that I do not mind having owning aggressive amount of - specifically, jeans and books. I am uncomplicated. I also have a thing about office supplies. But for the most part, stuff is not for me….I’m not a fan of beds with dozens of pillows just for decor, I don’t stockpile old photo albums or memorabilia, I don’t buy random tchotchkes when I’m traveling, and I don’t keep clothes I haven’t worn in a year “just in case”. Purging a closet is my favorite stress-relieving activity outside of going for a long walk or the occasional emergency cigratte if she is really hitting the fan (don’t “@” me. I’m an adult. I said what I said).

Sometimes I wish I had more things - more stuff.

There are things I wish I’d taken more time to hold on to, or keep track of. My Mom had a lot of “stuff”, and much of it has been lost along the long and windy road of kids and moves and divorce and jobs and big adventures and small decisions that make up a life.

Now that she is advancing in her disease, I have been, not surprisingly, thinking back to a lot of her “stuff” and wishing I had some of it, wishing she’d been more careful to store it or keep it; wishing I’d been less quick to move past it or get rid of it when moving and handling and caring for her stuff became more of my responsibility than hers.

I wish I had more photos of her when she was young, and more of my grandmother and great-grandmother. I am not sure there were more - but I wish I had more.

She had a mink coat when I was little - it’s all wrong, I know, but it was the ‘80’s and I remember her wearing it once. I remember sneaking into her closet to rub my little face against it. It was so soft, of course, but even more so something about it let me know that my mother had a life at one point that was bigger, grander than our little two-bedroom apartment in the woods might have led someone to believe.

She had amazing jewelry too - some costume, some fine, some old and meaningful. She had more, as the years went on, that leaned more wooy as she tapped into her spiritual side while I rolled my eyes and made snarky comments. I wish I had those things now, as I become more woo. As I am a now a mom without a present mom, and I could use some of that woo.

There are other things she had, not as shiny and showy, like a massive collection of CDs, that I wish I had. Pictures she had of people and places she loved. Her brother’s burial flag.

She had a green thumb and slightly more than a passing interest in cooking. Those hobbies tend to result in the accumulation of stuff. I’m OK with not having those. But she also had an innate sense of style and what was cool. I wish I had that.

I do have some of her stuff, of course. I have a few photos that are old, sweet, important to her and now to me. I have a few of her wooy rings and I have a locket that is the size of an old timey pocket watch, with photos inside of people I never knew but who look familiar.

I have her charm bracelet, the one I played with when I was little. The one she mailed to me on my 30th birthday.

I have her resilience too. Her persistence. Her obsessive focus. Her love of books. Her understanding that parenting is not about forming another person, it’s not about clinging to someone else, it’s not about having a claim on another human, but instead is about standing back - within arms reach but still, back - and being endlessly grateful to have a front row seat to simply watch another person become who they were always going to be.

When I think about all the things of hers that have been lost, I still wish I had more of her stuff.

But it turns out the good stuff was never the stuff anyway.

(Besides, what would I do with a mink coat?)

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