Learning to Let Go

For the record, I am NOT a hoarder.

I admit that I am guilty of collecting things and holding on to them for much longer than necessary, but that’s not the same thing.

When we decided to go roaming we decided it would be a great time to purge and declutter our lives and make a fresh, new and somewhat lighter start. We began with clothes and shoes, then moved on to kitchen items we would no longer need.

We started to run into difficulties when we got to the library. My wife and I are avid readers. Over the years, we’ve transitioned to Kindle books (and my wife is a huge Audible fan) but there are still lots of hardcover and softcover books that we’ve collected. Parting with those treasures was a bit more difficult, but we bit the bullet and made donations to several charities in the area.

My wife is a champ. She’s very practical when it comes to these types of things. She had three distinct piles: Sell (which included donations), Store, and Schlep – the things we would carry with us on the road. She dutifully filled each pile and her items were discharged accordingly.

I, on the other hand, struggled.

While it’s not something I talk about often, I have a fear that leads to my wanting to collect and keep things beyond their usefulness. You see, I fear Alzheimer’s.

There is no history of it in my family (that I know of) but it continues to be my biggest fear. More than any other physical fear, I fear losing my memory, losing my knowledge of family, friends, and memories of the amazing life I’ve lived.

I’ve seen movies and television shows about people struggling with Alzheimer’s and it scares me to think someday I could slowly drift into an unfamiliar world filled with unfamiliar faces and just feel totally alone.

I think that’s why I collect things; to help me remember. It gives me a feeling of comfort to pick up an item or look at a picture or use a certain coffee mug and recall “This is when we went on that great trip to Greece” or “This is the time we went whitewater rafting in Oregon” or “Remember that little pub in Ireland when the locals sat around the fireplace playing their instruments and singing folk songs?”

Everything I have is tied to a memory. Every photo, every trinket, every coaster, and mug. They all hold meaning and I fear that if I give away or throw away that trinket, I will somehow lose the memory. That sounds silly in my head as I write this, but that’s what it feels like. And losing memories is my biggest fear.

My wife has been amazing in helping me work through this. She has encouraged me to keep more things than I probably need. I’m not schlepping them all; they will go safely into storage so I can recover them at some point in the future.

As a new roamer, I will travel light, but I will probably still collect some small trinkets and photos along the way… just for the memories.