I collect friends, memories and wisdom. I used to enjoy collecting things, but after living in 10 different states and moving 16 times in the past 27 years of a very happy marriage, I have to really love an object before adding it to the pile of "stuff" we keep moving around with us (if it's cobalt blue glass, there is no contest).
For those of you who are wondering, we are not in the military (unless you consider our forays into pastoring as joining the "army of the Lord"). We've just had a number of career changes over the years as the Lord has led us through various callings. Having just finished move #16 (from one apartment to another across town - lower rent and gained a third bedroom for guests), I can tell you that the act of packing, transporting, unpacking and finding a new place for each item is very clarifying as to its true value to me. Sometimes I unpack something and immediately put it in a box for Goodwill.
My parents grew up during the Great Depression (hope this one doesn't turn out to be as great) and learned how to make do or do without. My dad used to tell the story of how his dad moved their family from Iowa to Oklahoma just in time for the Dustbowl. They were so poor his mother fed them jackrabbits when there was nothing else to be had. My dad learned how to fix almost anything using whatever he had handy. The youngest daughter of a family of 9, my mother learned at a very young age to save ("I might need this sometime," she would say). After we went off to college, Mom turned our basement into a repository of all the boxes of report cards, photos, school concert programs and who knows what else my two siblings and I amassed over the years. When Mom became ill with Alzheimers, my dad made us all take our "boxes" with us to our respective homes. I remember that I had 12 (!) boxes full of what my mom thought I would consider important. I went through each box and while most of it ended up in the burn barrel out back, it was enlightening to go back and experience my childhood memories as an adult. It was also very freeing to get rid of some reminders of not-so-happy memories (burn, baby, burn).
I still have several boxes of my own to go through, but I'm learning I can let go of a lot of things that used to seem important. Because Mom was in her fifties when she was diagnosed with Alzheimers (like her mother and all her sisters) I felt like I lost her much too early. Her body hung around for another 18 years, but the mom I knew was gradually erased. Afraid I would forget what she had been like, I began to hoard every item that reminded me of her, down to scraps of paper with her handwriting. Some years ago I realized I was trying to hold on out of fear, and now am trying to keep only the items of hers I find especially meaningful.
There is nothing wrong with collecting things, but the question is whether having all that "stuff" gives me a better life. Someone told me once that everything I have also has me. Once I own an item, it takes up space in my brain and some grey cells are assigned to keep track of it, whether I mean to or not. If my home is jammed with items, so is my brain - no wonder I get distracted.
That's why I am collecting friends, memories and wisdom. I don't have to dust them and and they fit perfectly in a space I always carry with me - my heart.
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