There’s a shed in my yard that my dad built years ago. It looks like a small barn with a built-in workbench and a couple of corner shelves. There’s also a whole lot of junk piled up everywhere you look. Seriously, the door barely opens.
I spent some time in there last night pulling stuff out and shaking my head at the amount of junk that has accumulated. Mind you, I enjoy salvaging old stuff but there’s very little in there that merits salvaging. Rusted old curtain rods, disposable plastic flower pots, broken tools, partial bags of potting soil, pieces of siding and all manner of crap have the place bursting at the seams.
I made a very small dent and have a decent pile of stuff to go to the trash. So far, there’s not much to recycle. As I was pulling out things, I couldn’t help but notice that everything represented a choice over time. That choice was simple: “Do I throw it away now or do I throw it away later?”
And so I chose to throw it away later …. which is now.
Truth be told, I come from a long line of packrats. My dad may be their King but I suspect the generations before him were no slobs in this department.
At the risk of sounding like an enabler, I understand why we are the way we are.
I come from rural America. Southern Ohio is very Appalachian. We tend to have fewer resources here. The jobs don’t pay so well which means that we can’t always afford to buy something new or even hire a repairman when something breaks.
We were DIY’ers before influencers on YouTube told us it was cool.
Things have changed over time. Online shopping makes it so much easier to have a new appliance or lawn mower part delivered. Although, it wasn’t that long ago that you had to walk into the local hardware and have them look up your part in a paper catalog and then order it for you via a landline telephone.
We still drive thirty miles one way to buy a fridge, a pair of shoes or anything else you can’t buy at Dollar General, a small grocer, pharmacy or hardware. That is, we did until credit cards and online shopping made it so we don’t even have to leave home for these purchases.
Still, that all requires money that many people around here don’t have.
So we still tend to hold onto things. If your mower breaks and you buy new, you keep the old because you or a neighbor could salvage parts from it. Dad’s garage is like some kind of magic genie bottle. I once bought an antique radio that was missing a knob. He dug around a bit and found exactly what it lacked. This was a particular victory for him and one we won’t soon forget.
I’m not as bad as he is but I do struggle with letting go of things that might be repurposed. This is evidenced in my craft room where scrapbook supplies, bits of ribbon, stray buttons and scraps of fabric mix in with home decor items that occasionally get reimagined.
Social media is full of minimalists who tell us to keep our surfaces clear of clutter and to not stash away in a closet or drawer something that really should be tossed in the trash. They say you need just one plate, bowl, fork and cup for each person in your house and that your cupboards shouldn’t be full of extra food and stuff you don’t need this week. They tells us we will be lighter, happier and better off if we aren’t weighed down by stuff we don’t need.
This concept is tempting and so lovely but so foreign as well. I can’t help thinking that many of these people have never known true need. They’ve never been snowed into a country home where there’s no food delivery service and where the nearest grocery is several slippery miles away.
They don’t know what it’s like to break the heel on a pair of dress shoes and have to wait for replacements until you drive to town or until Amazon can ship you a new pair. The old scuffed up heels that are languishing in the back of the closet will come in handy for work until new can be acquired.
In my case, the building looks more like a hoarder’s paradise than anything useful and it is appalling. My dad at least keeps things that could be useful someday.
Once I finish cleaning out the building, Dad and I are scheming to repurpose it into a potting shed with no longterm storage. Meanwhile, there is still a lot to be done and I fear losing steam to do it before the bees, snakes, spiders and other country critters lay claim to it as the weather warms up.
While he hasn’t said so to my face, I suspect my dad is laughing and wondering who’s the packrat now.
