Have you ever wondered where all your household junk really comes from? Or, why you saved it? When you get right down to it, probably half of the stuff sitting in your house, in the closets, pushed back into drawers, and of course, the “good” things packed away for the future in the shed or garage, all could be eliminated with very little damage done to your lifestyle now, or in the near future.

This enlightening fact fell upon me, recently, when we found it necessary to pay for a household move across the country. Always before, our precious belongings were packed and moved by a company at the expense of my husband’s employer. And they allowed us to take it all. I did clean out a few drawers and managed to have a garage sale, thus eliminating from our lives, a few unnecessary items, but with these few exceptions everything else went along to the new homes – until now.

When it became evident we were going to be paying the bill for this move, we quickly decided we could live without a lot of the precious junk linked to our lives. So we had a garage sale! And this sale would surpass any twelve-family garage sale ever held.

It was amazing what we found we had not been able to live without.

The piano, I suppose, was the hardest thing to let go. This dear member of our family had been with us for over twenty years, dragged around from city to city, crossing the country at least twice, had been in storage more than once, and had put up with more than five sets of hands learning to make fingers, brains and piano keys all come together at the same time with some reasonable sound. But this piano, in spite of everything, was nearly in perfect condition. And it should have been. I took very good care of it. Also, no one played it any more, at least, not for the past twelve years after our daughter, Diana, moved away. It was, however, assured a good future. The young woman who bought it played beautifully in her trial of it, and almost cried for joy when we agreed on a price.

Besides all the “like new” furniture we sold, I shed only a few tears over most items I had to sort, classify and price. There seemed to be about a thousand other goodies I placed in our garage sale. Well, it seemed like that many at the time.

Only I, apparently, was capable to make these dreaded decisions. My dear husband, always asked the same type of questions. “Do we really need three sets of round cake pans?” Or, “what is this thing, and do we still need it?”

It was hard to admit to him that I hadn’t baked a real cake in years, and as it was quite doubtful we would ever again own a square tub Maytag Wringer washing machine, so it was probably safe to throw away the knob from the lid of the last one.

As we dug deeper into our belongings, and into our hearts, we found we could possibly live without six cartons of books, some of which never had been opened in fifteen years. The faded copies of well-used Golden Books, the complete years and years of monthly Reader’s Digest magazines, and several volumes of books on raising tropical fish. Can you believe I hadn’t any idea where half of the stuff came from? And I swear, some of it I’d never seen before.

My sweet and generous mother, who was always giving things to us, has contributed a lot, as well as the rest of my relatives. Have I been doing the same thing to our kids? I do enjoy picking up small items I’m sure they will love, treasure and use. Like the flower pot I bought for our daughter, Kelly. It is ceramic and in the shape of a sneaker, formed to look old and with frayed laces. I thought it was really her. After all, she was into jogging.

Now, however, I have been granted a new start. All the old junk has been sold, given away, or trashed, and I will never, ever allow this fate to happen again. I will just have to stay away from flea markets, department stores, and my mother.