They say it isn’t nice

to  love things as well as life

but hoarders know that things will stay

when others in their lives go way.

My things all around me pile,

big Mama to the little child.

Old letters calling to my mind,

tales from those who are left behind.

Wise old Yoda looks back at me

as though to say, “It’s me and thee.”

(Nan’s reblog from 2019)

It’s 2021 now and I’m still dealing with “things.” In fact, earlier this month I added a 6 ft x 4 ft painting from the Recycle store down the street, plus purchased a 4-drawer legal size filing cabinet. One of my daughters caught the –quirk…defense…habit…addiction…affliction…from me.

I suspect it relates back to a problem with transitional objects*. For much of my life my transitional objects have been books after the baby blankets disappeared. Hunger, depression, loneliness, a longing to be validated and changing schools all along before I could really practice making friends (11 schools in 12 years prior to 2 universities). The result has been too much of a me-me-me focus. I never heard of a support group for hoarders, but I suspect the world could use one. No, not the world–there are many more refugees with bare bones belongings than self-centered hoarders, or maybe it should be hungry and lonely hoarders.

I don’t think being incested as a child (grammarians would shudder at that misuse of the word) is pertinent to my hoarding. I do suspect that my feelings and thoughts being discounted by my parents is probably the primary culprit. I recall as a very young child cutting a hole in the skirt of my dress. When someone asked me why I did it I said that I didn’t have anything else to do. Then, somewhere I wrote Say It Aint So! (Maybe I blogged it here, too):

Here’s the thing:

I’ve been talking

through this

loudspeaker I

found in my crib

80 years ago and

just now notice

it’s not plugged in!

The old Christmas cards, letters and especially valued articles (on consciousness, imaging, evolution, dreaming, nature, etc.) and even more especially old photos of my immediate family and genealogy on both my parents’ sides and other genealogical records and shells and driftwood, fossils and puppets and 10 shoeboxes of big old-oversized dvds leftover from my volunteer days at Public Access television, plus journals and dreams…you get the idea…

Actually I feel kind of scared at the thought of discarding evidence from my life. I’m scared of depression and boredom, I guess…And perhaps surrounding myself with things is a form of escape from acknowledgement of the inevitable end of things and me.