We’ve all done it: bought things on impulse that we’ve later wished we could return for a refund, and thought how wealthy we’d be if we had all that wasted money back. Oh, not the good things, or the ones with sentimental value — not the portrait of Lenin wangled from a Russian government official for $50 and smuggled out of Moscow in my suitcase; or the beautiful Bohemian crystal cordial glasses so carefully packed and brought back from that summer in Prague; and definitely not the $1,000 string of Ming pearls I practically stole at the phenomenal sale price of $500, even though I rarely have anywhere appropriate to wear them these days.

No, I’m talking about the “stuff” that accumulates over the years without our even realizing it, until one day we look around and find ourselves nearly buried in “tchotchki” . . . trinkets, knick-knacks, or whatever you choose to call them. Call them crap if you like. They were treasures when you bought them; they’re no more than dust collectors now. And finally you decide it’s time for a clean-out because you’re not actually a hoarder . . . it’s just that an accumulation of years brings with it an accumulation of stuff.

There are all sorts of motivations for purging one’s belongings: a neighborhood yard sale; overcrowded closets; a fund for the victims of an earthquake in some country you’ve never heard of; or simply one of those old-age things where you suddenly realize you’ve amassed a lot of junk over the years and your kids will eventually have to go through it all and have a good laugh at your expense. Of course, you’ll be dead, but still . . . Do you really want to give them the satisfaction?

I thought not.

So I recently began looking around — just looking, mind you, not actually doing anything about it — and I could not believe what I was seeing. I started with the clothes. I had already donated most of my good work clothes — suits, silk blouses, leather purses and high-heeled shoes — when I retired. But then I found I needed clothes to suit my new, casual, hang-around-the-house-and-the-supermarket lifestyle. And I started buying jeans, sweats, tee shirts, quilted vests . . . Note the plurals. It seems I “needed” those cute embroidered/glittery tops for every holiday on the calendar. I needed them so badly, they each got worn once, shoved in the back of the closet, and ignored after I discovered what a pain in the ass they were to launder.

And speaking of laundry, I have this habit — some people think it’s good, others think I’m crazy — of wearing something once and tossing it into the laundry basket, whether it needs washing or not. Even my jeans. So a couple of pair of those aren’t enough for me; after all, I can’t be doing laundry every day. So there are light blue, medium blue, dark blue . . . even black jeans and white jeans. Some with tapered legs, some wider. Some full-length, some ankle-length. Some heavy-duty, others lighter weight for summer. At least a dozen pair of jeans. A girl needs a choice, right?

Of course, you can’t wear jeans every day, so there are other pants as well — corduroy for winter, linen for summer, silky ones for those long-ago nights at the theater and the cruises I used to take, and the all-important sweats for our “fat days.” And so it goes, through the tee shirts (long- and short-sleeved, plus the sleeveless tanks), and the big shirts to wear over the tanks (denim, seersucker, plaid, striped, solids).

Oh, did I mention these are all in two sizes, as my weight tends to fluctuate a little? I could start my own freakin’ boutique! But since that’s not likely to happen, I just need to pull out the ones I haven’t worn in a couple of years and haul them down to the Salvation Army. Yeah, that’s all.

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But enough about the clothes. On to the other stuff. What in the name of all that’s holy was I thinking when I bought — one volume a month (at $25 apiece) for nearly four years, back in the ‘60s — a complete set of the Great Books, leather-bound, gold-embossed . . . and never read, with one exception: Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” which would have given me the same classic story in the paperback version for $10.99. And there they sit, each as virginal as the day they were delivered, looking most impressive in the beautiful, Amish-crafted bookcase I bought for $400 (one of the few purchases I don’t regret). They’re valued at about $1,000. Anybody interested? Make me an offer; I’m listening.

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Throws. I love soft, fluffy, cozy throws for snuggling into my oversized reading chair on those cold, snowy winter nights. I kept buying them for a couple of years; they’re everywhere: on the sofa, the chair, the foot of my bed — and even a couple on a closet shelf, still in their original packaging. I live in Georgia, in the southeastern United States, for Heaven’s sake . . . it doesn’t snow here! I keep hoping, and waiting, but it just doesn’t. What is my problem??!!!

And Kokopelli. You know, that adorable little creature of Native American lore, who dances around with his little musical pipe, bringing joy and good fortune in his wake. I love him. I once had about a half dozen of his likenesses. I’m down to one now, and I’m still waiting for that good fortune to fall on me. And the dream catcher — that doesn’t work either. I still have weird, sometimes unpleasant dreams. Maybe you actually have to be Native American for those things to work. My DNA is 99% Russian, 0.6% East African, and 0.4% Norwegian. I’ve been sending my wish list to the wrong charms all these years; but I’m afraid to get rid of them in case doing so would invite bad luck, and the real good luck is simply that I’m still here.

Then there’s the file drawer filled with office supplies from the time I worked from home; the boxes of DVDs from when I had an actual DVD player; and the cookbooks from when I used to cook. Those things are usable and just need to be donated, if I can figure out who might appreciate them.

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But then we come to the things of true sentimental value; those are the real problem. I’ve been privileged to have visited no fewer than fifteen countries and about three-fourths of the United States including Alaska. You can’t do that without bringing home souvenirs, and they all have meaning: from the green glass Inukshuk from Canada, to the amber paperweight from Estonia, to the original artwork rubbing from the “other” Georgia (the country). And gifts from others — small things mostly. A little bud vase from Portugal; a Lomonosov porcelain egg from a friend in St. Petersburg when it was still called Leningrad; all the beautiful pictures my daughter has drawn or painted for me from the time she was little.

You can’t just toss things like that; it’s like throwing away the people who gave them to you, and erasing an important part of your past.

So maybe I will just let the two of them — son and daughter — go through it all. Perhaps . . . just perhaps . . . they’ll see it, not as a pile of junk to be disposed of, but as the story of their mother’s life. And they’ll know that it was a pretty good one after all.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/11/24