Whatever happened to "empty nest"?

[jhetley]

I was just wandering around downstairs, waiting for the second cup of coffee to trickle down through grounds and filter into usefulness.  And contemplating the serried ranks of boxes left here by both Elder and Younger Sons.  Upstairs, downstairs, in milady's chamber.

Wonder when (or if) that stuff will be summoned to its destiny . . .

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

This is true. I can't claim innocence in this matter either... but I married and had my own house at twenty, so retrievig Stuff from parents was easy to do because we had somewhere to put it.

If I had to move now, the Stuff mountain would be almost impossible to cope with.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"Stuff" remains one of the largest obstacles to our relocating into something smaller, easier to heat, and with a condo association in charge of mowing and snow removal in alternate seasons.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

We've all spent a lifetime collecting Stuff and - yes - if we had to walk away from it, we probably could, but it comforts us and says: this is who I am. This is what I've done.

When we move home, the bricks and mortar don't matter as much as the familiar Stuff. This is the third house I've lived in since we got married and after both house moves I thought I'd feel some emotional tug whenever I passed the old place. But as soon as the Stuff was transferred I felt little or no connection. Once someone else's Stuff was in it - it became someone else's home.

Home is where the Stuff is.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

In our case, it's several lifetimes collecting Stuff -- some ancestral Stuff runs back to Great-great-several-more-times-great Grandmother Boehm, who spun and loomed that flax back in Alsace in 1789 . . .

(That part isn't hard, it folds up neatly in a chest. It's the chest itself that's the problem.)

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic.

I do have the grandfather clock that was bought by my great-great grandfather for my great-grandparents on the occasion of their wedding in 1883. It's pretty fragile, now, having been in my Aunt Mary's and (her daughter) my spinster Aunt Bessie's none too tender care until that line of the family died out. I've had it since the mid 1990s and if I had the money I'd get it restored properly - but I haven't. It's probably worth quite a bit - or would be if restored. I'm not sure about its value in it's present condition.

That's the only heirloom, though, unless you count a few old photos and the two antique mismatched chairs my Grandpa George bought in junk shops in the 1950s.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

We have more ancestral Stuff than we know what to do with. Most of the furniture Stuff gets employed storing smaller Stuff.

And my sister has her half of the Stuff, with no heirs . . .