When It's Just Too Much
(This is an audio version of the newsletter below. It’s unedited and raw. If you prefer to listen, I hope you enjoy it, including the real sounds and stutters that come with it)
As I’m writing this, I’m finishing up month three of clearing out my grandmother’s home. Trying to tie up loose ends of a lifetime of memories stored in one house. A lifetime of “I want to try that” and “I can’t get rid of that perfectly good” items all stashed and shoved in every nook and cranny.
It’s a home that has become as much a physical representation of “home” to me as any other. A place that I think of when I think of my childhood.
Playing cards with Grandma. Doing crossword puzzles with Grandpa.
Walking in to the smell of sautéing peppers, onions, and carrots on the stove for homemade soup.
Finding the two of them delicately dancing around the kitchen prepping meals, washing dishes. Carrying on with life; just the two of them.
A home that I was always, always, always welcome in without an invitation.
When I think of the home, I think of the moments I collected. Not the stuff.
The VHS tapes that were in fun pull-out drawers that now seem like relics.
The handheld nutcracker tool and the bowl of nuts out for every holiday.
The tiny baby food jars that they’d pour me a glass of juice in when I came to visit.
It’s all stuff that’s still in that house. Stuff that remained there my entire life. The stuff I can think fondly back on and wish that I could bottle up the moments with my dear grandparents. But all that remains is the stuff. The items conjure up memories.
But in the last three months, I’ve learned that even if the items bring up memories, the stuff still sat there. In fact, too much stuff sat there, in their beloved home… for far too long.
Every sheet set purchased.
Every curling iron tried.
Every piece of silver and teacup and fancy dish set that was passed down.
Every pair of shoes worn.
Every pattern used to make clothes.
Every dress.
Every pair of pants.
Every single gift that ever entered the home.
Every letter that was written.
Every sentimental item from generations past.
It all came to live in this home. And it came to stay.
Peeling back the layers of someone’s life is excruciating, especially when it’s someone you loved so dearly. You see all the wonderful moments in photos, in gift tags, in drawings from their children (one of which was my own mother and the thing I’m cherishing so much that I’m seeing now).
You see the newspaper clippings from your own achievements, because this was the type of people they were.
You saved what was important.
You saved what mattered.
You saved what people made for you or gifted to you, because you loved them.
Along the way, though, as I’m making my way through the sedimentary layers of history of my grandmother, and even farther in my grandfather, I’m finding that they loved others so much that they weren’t even really able to love themselves in their space.
So much stuff buried and lodged into every closet. Closets and shelving built to accommodate the stuff that was worth keeping.
It’s hard to pull out what’s important when it’s all still there.
I find a photo of an important event in a drawer. An obvious moment of pride and joy for them.
Then days later, I found a dress from that same event. The dress housed the memory for my grandmother. She was afraid to let it go. Afraid that if the item was gone, the memory would be too.
But when it’s all important, none of it is.
I’ve found so many incredible things, but in the overwhelm of it all… none of it is.
Things that I’ve brought home that I think “This will be the memory of my grandmother,” only to turn around and donate it myself, because I realize that yes, this is just stuff too.
All the items that she saved, she wound up being buried under.
So much stuff.
Too much stuff for one person to go through.
Three months of two people working multiple hours a week to go through.
It breaks my heart. It hurts me to see someone who I associate much of my childhood with such joy and life having been surrounded by so much stuff. So much of the wrong things.
A life that could have been lived comfortably was wedged out by the physical manifestation of memories past. Of past hurts. Of past loves. Of past achievements. Of past relationships. Of past absolute and overwhelming joy.
As I look around a still full home, I wonder when it’s just too much to care. It’s time to let it all go. To remember instead of retain. To walk away and let history stay in the past.
Because the time I spend digging through my grandmother’s history is time I’m not spending in my own. It’s just too much stuff for one person to find special. When it’s just too much, nothing is.