Do You Really Need To Keep Your Childhood Snowsuit?

I once read that moving ranks third on the list of stressors behind only death and divorce. My angst has been magnified by the fact that I can't just pack up all my belongings in a U-Haul and drive 10,000 miles to Singapore, where I'll soon begin a new teaching job. Over the last month, it's been a real battle between deciding what to take and what to discard.

I've always prided myself on traveling lightly through life, avoiding the temptation to indulge in the latest fashions and latest trinkets, but I must admit that I've been shocked by the amount of possessions that seem to have materialized in my closets.

I can explain part of it, an "I can't pass up the 30% off sale on pants" or receiving a lovely new sweater for Christmas or obtaining yet another t-shirt from participating in an event. What I can't explain is why I've kept so many possessions in my closet that I never utilize or even pull out of the darkness.

It's easy to get rid of extra clothes, but for some reason, I find it hard to purge myself of items bearing sentimental attachments: my childhood record collection, although I no longer own a record player; a racquetball racquet that I last used in college in 1987; baseball cards that I acquired when I attended elementary school, cards now covered with dust.

If I'm being honest, the reason I can't part with these personal effects is because I maintain some kind of illusion that one day I might actually need them. Maybe, I'll buy a new record player and listen to my Flock of Seagulls album again, or maybe, I'll get back on the racquetball court, or maybe, I'll give those baseball cards to my children one day, even though I'm a 48-year-old single man with no offspring.

So, my sentimentals remain in the closet, deteriorating but still there "just in case."  Really, it's quite selfish because I've been squirreling my possessions away from people who might actually need them.

Had I been relocating to another state I'm sure I would have continued to hoard my childhood mementos; however, this time it just wasn't possible, especially since my family didn't want to gain custody of my junk, so earlier in the month I sold my records and my baseball cards and put my racket on consignment.

You know what? I haven't missed my sentimental treasures a bit, and now, hopefully, someone else is enjoying those things that had been boxed up for years. I also haven't missed my furniture, the majority of which I gave away to a couple of charitable organizations and an immigrant family.

I'd like to think that I arrived at my period of purging out of an epiphany or personal growth, but really it happened out of necessity because there's no way I was going to pay to ship a couch 10,000 miles. Even though my apartment is now empty, I'm full of the satisfaction of knowing that my possessions aren't wasting away in a storage locker.

In a spirit of full disclosure, none of my possessions were especially valuable, so what is a person to do if he or she owns items worth a lot of money. Surely, those things cluttering up the attic can't be discarded.

I'm reminded of the story of my brother's friend Matt, who owned a large collection of first-edition books, books that were both monetarily and sentimentally valuable. Year after year, Matt said he glanced at the spines of the books but rarely picked them off the shelf. Still, Matt couldn't part with them.

Then, life got in the way. At one point, Matt needed some extra money and decided to sell his collection, assuming the financial windfall would help ease his sentimental loss; however, it didn't turn out that way.

Matt discovered that his valuable book collection was a lot less valuable than he hoped when the book dealer offered Matt a pittance of what he anticipated. Still, he needed the money and had to unload the literature.

Before making the transaction, Matt spied a soccer ball on one of the store's shelves. "O.K., I'll sell you my books, but will you throw in the ball?" asked Matt. The owner agreed, and Matt walked out of the store without his prized books, replaced instead by a $20 soccer ball.

A few weeks later, Matt was feeling a little stressed from work, so he pulled out his soccer ball and went to the park to unwind. With each passing moment, Matt slowly came to the realization that he was deriving more pleasure kicking his ball around the park - enjoying nature, exercising in the radiant sunshine, and socializing with passers-by - than any satisfaction he'd ever gotten from his books.

Still, such epiphanies are rare, and more often than not, year after year, we hang onto those items that we think bring us happiness or comfort.

However, sometimes it takes an outsider to put life into perspective. Years ago, I lived in an apartment behind a private residence, where an elderly woman resided. Eventually, she succumbed to old age and illness.

Before putting the house on the market, the woman's family hired a firm to run an estate sale. Soon, a large dumpster appeared in the driveway, and a crew threw the majority of her possessions away, the same possessions that I'm sure she prized so highly.

I couldn't help but ask the head of the crew why the workers were throwing away so many of the deceased woman's things, rather than selling them.

The man's face grew serious. I'll never forget his reply. The man said that we all hang onto our belongings, thinking they're important, but to the rest of the world it's mostly just junk.

"The one thing I've learned in this business is that it's not worth acquiring a lot of stuff because one day someone like me is just going to toss most of it out, " he said.

Soccer anyone?