Stuff

If my friends who know me best were asked to list three things that stand out about me, I think they’d be:
1. she’s short
2. That cart she’s always wheeling around behind her filled to the brim with all kinds of stuff, and
3… well, I guess those two things pretty much summed me up!

Stuff. I seem to like stuff. I find stuff, I buy stuff, I collect stuff, I always seem to have an over abundance of stuff…must be some sickness from my early childhood or something.

I don’t like to be without stuff, and I can never have too much stuff! If I need to wrap a present for someone, I’ll go to Hallmark and buy a new roll of wrap, because the 20 or 30 rolls I keep stashed in my “stuff” closet might be needed for something else someday.

I’ve been known to be quite proud of myself when someone asks me if I might have some certain “stuff”…and I can happily produce it! A bar of soap with a hand-painted snowman on it…Of COURSE I do! Two hundred black Over The Hill Birthday napkins…most certainly, AND I can throw in the black candles as well…probably even some of those pointy birthday hats with a glittery “60” on them, though not a complete set. (I don’t know why I have those…no one in my home has even hit 60 yet, though my husband is getting pretty darn close!) A tin container of Prang water colors? You bet…and it’s never been used. You catch my drift. It’s a sickness.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the “stuff” I might want to take to Africa. The things I might miss most…the things I’ll really, really need!

It’s not the first time I’ll be packing up a house. I’ve moved around a bit in my life. Something interesting that I’ve found is there’s a lot of “stuff” I’ve boxed up, never to be seen again. I’m not sure exactly what’s happened to it all…it just ceased to exist.

Quite honestly, looking around my house at all my “stuff” has left me somewhat paralyzed. I don’t know where to begin. And the 5,000+ square feet in this house hasn’t even been big enough to house all my stuff! We also have a storage unit! I don’t know how big that is…I don’t even know what’s IN it! I just know that a little more than 9 years ago, we filled it up with a bunch of stuff and we’ve never looked back. Except once a month when we pay the bill and say, “what’s even in that stupid storage unit?”
Tomorrow we’re emptying it out. Surely I’ll find missing stuff that has left a giant void in my life for nine years that will be filled tomorrow!

No, I’m over the stuff. I started to make a list of the things we would need to take, and aside from the obvious, like, toilet paper and lots of packs of tuna and some peanut butter (not together!) to tide us over until we take a liking to deep fried crickets, and toilet paper, as well as those few things that are totally for vanity purposes...Dove Soap and Herbal Essence Shampoo, (oh, and a razor) I’ve realized it’s not that stuff that I’ll be missing in Africa.

It’s the intangible things that are so much a part of my life that I haven’t really been able to separate myself from them.
It’s sitting in the bookstore with my cute little friend, Michelle…chatting for hours, non-stop, drinking African Autumn Bush Tea, and needing more time even though the store is closing…
it’s seeing Brenda or Donna or Char come bounding across the church foyer, going out of their way just to grab me and give me a hug.
It’s my shorter than me friend, Linda loopie, that can practically read my mind, and actually gets a kick out of my shortcomings instead of being frustrated by them…
It’s my accountability sisters, Judy and Susie, who have tried desperately to fix me for the last five years, every Thursday morning over bad coffee and $10 egg whites.
It’s working side by side with my little daughter Mandy on Sunday’s…family dinner/game night, whether she’s chopping things or just chatting with me.
It’s the same 14 text messages I get from my middle daughter, Jesse on Sunday… “fam dinner?” “yep.” “What time?” “Oh, 7’ish, as usual.” “Okay…I’ll be there…I’ll bring dessert.” And then at 7:15… “I’m enroute…I’ll be late, don’t wait!” I should note here that family dinner/game night was her idea many years ago! And we never eat before 8.
There’s my second set of accountability sisters (I need lots of help apparently) that love me, even though I seldom make it to our morning rendezvous…Tammy, Jeanne & Katherine…
There’s Christmas …a time when all the kids come back home. I’ve never imagined life without that! The last few years, we’ve been blessed to have the “outlaws,” my youngest daughter’s in-laws, join us for Christmas. They’re not the typical outlaws…Al and Kathy, and their beautiful daughter Ari…they’re family…we’re tight. We’re comfortable. They even became part of our Christmas Eve jammie tradition!
There’s my son-in-law, AJ, who reminds me of the “not cool” things to say these days…who's always there when we need him…(except to follow us to Africa!)
…that my oldest daughter, Jenny can fly in or drive in from D.C to see us any time she feels like it…or that I’m ten hours from my mom and sister if I need to get there. There are so many relationships…
Then, there’s our son Sean. Well, he pretty much left before us. His stuff is a little different to me, and frankly still puzzling me. Sean died nearly a year ago, at age 18, his “stuff” is all we have left of him. His stuff, and his ashes. Which is of course how I figured out we’re supposed to go to Africa…I’ll save that for another day.
And there’s our dog, Teddy…well, not so much.

These are the kinds of simple pleasures that fortify my ordinary life; and I will miss them. More than my unopened box of 64 Crayola’s, or my china or silver…or antiques, more than my collection of sea shells, and buttons, ribbon and stickers and snowmen… more than my books, or even my twice kicked habit of dark chocolate M&M’s. Without these things, these pleasures—the relationships, not the M&M’s, though now that I’m thinking about them, also the M&M’s—I won’t be nearly as prosperous as I am right now.

It’s never been the “stuff”…it’s always been the people. It’s the people in my life that have made me so rich.

This will make my packing a lot easier, since the important stuff I can carry in my heart…which will leave lots of extra space in my carry on for dark chocolate M&M’s.