August 2000

I am a hoarder. I think I got it from my Mom. As a child I would sit on the vinyl chair in the kitchen, and watch her painstakingly unwrap the aluminum foil off yesterday’s leftovers so that it wouldn’t rip. She would then wash it with a soapy sponge and leave it to dry on the dish rack. After dinner, she would carefully smooth it out, gently refold it and put it in the drawer for the next use.

Open any drawer in her kitchen and you will find stacks of recycled foil, plastic wrap, used rubber bands and styrofoam trays. Go into the hall closet and you will find wrapping paper from a present I gave her five years ago. There are coil of ribbons of any length, old zippers and buttons from clothes that were worn, torn and thrown away ages ago.

The last time I visited, I left my toothpaste at home. After all, my mom’s house is better stocked than the local mini-market, so why would I weigh down my suitcase with such trivialities? When I didn’t see a tube on the bathroom counter that night, I opened the closest drawer and grabbed the tube of Colgate I saw lying on top. The tube was half-used but the toothpaste resisted oozing out. Not their daily tube, I reasoned. It tasted a little different too as I continued my bedtime ritual. By the time I reached to turn off the lights, I realized what felt so strange about that Colgate.

I paused and picked up the tube for closer inspection. It was not made of rubberized plastic. It had a metallic ingredient that left an indentation from every squeeze. As I starred at it, I realized that they stopped making such tubes . . . in the 80’s?

I opened the drawer where I had found it and looked closer. It was cluttered with small shampoos and soaps from every cruise my parents ever took going back 10 years or more. Here too was a contact lens cleaner I hadn’t used since 1994. A barrette I left (and thought I lost) during my visit in 1998. I threw away the few items I was responsible for. The bulk I left untouched.

Yes, my mother is a hoarder. She hoards all the little things that comes across her hands, afraid that once she throws it away, she’ll find a need for it. Her drawers are filled with all the things that she may or may not use this year, next year or 10 years from now.

I am my mother’s daughter in so many ways. From her I inherited my sensible efficiency – streamlining every project from 30 steps down to the required ten. From her I learned my eternal optimism. Like when at 17, I crashed my father’s car into the one in front because my foot had slipped off the brakes. A favorite lip-gloss shot out from under the passenger seat at the impact. “Well, I least I found this again!” I sighed as I filled out the insurance form bringing my premium up another notch.

From Mom, I knew how to hoard. But having to move every three years and around the globe each time made hoarding difficult. So I don’t hoard the same things she does. But I am a hoarder just the same.

I hoard memories, sentiments and beliefs that have long passed their expiration dates. I am cluttered with remembrances of old hurts and smoldering angers. Like half-used bottles of perfume and old dried out make-up samples, they clutter the drawer of my future with their odd scents and off-color shades. Cleaning out this drawer is like cleaning out my Mom’s. You have to look at each item, check the label and recall where you picked it up. If it is outdated, throw it out.

Like my Mom, I am afraid. What if once I discard it, I’ll find a use for it? And will I find something else to put in those drawers once I empty out the old? What guarantees I have that the new stuff will be better than the old?

Hold on, there is no guarantee. That’s why you have to look at the merits of what’s actually there. I once read in a fashion magazine that advised readers to throw out anything they haven’t worn in six months. Okay, so those in northern climates might want to stretch that to a year.

What can I get rid of under these guidelines? I can throw away the feeling of rejection I gathered when I overheard my sister say to a neighbor that my parents hadn’t “planned” on having me. I was 7 years old then. I can discard the humiliation of thinking I was worthless when the head of the English Department at the high school – instead of answering a question about a class – highlighted a memo containing the answer and tossed it back to me without so much as a glance. Oh yes, I can wipe out feeling victimized every time I remember a particular encounter with a woman at the airline counter that was nasty, I mean really nasty. And it was also two years ago.

I can get pretty good at this.

Whoa, slow down! I have to be careful that I’m not so swept away by this housecleaning mood that I throw away the wisp of hair sealed in the little plastic bag at the bottom of the drawer. It is from my niece’s first haircut. Baby hair that she can show her own baby one day. They are not useful but precious, not valuable but priceless, not clutter but a gift.

I look at my own clutter and pause. Does this apply to something that one has built too? What about a house, a career, a lifestyle? Do these things have an expiration date? How do we know when a habit, a goal or a perspective no longer works for us?

When we cease to grow from it. “What does that mean,” you may ask. Your idea of growth will be very different from mine. You may want to grow your bank account, toenails, or stature in your friends’ eyes. You may want to grow your love for a person or commitment to world peace. It doesn’t matter what you choose, only that you do. Knowing what it is will help you define the things that you want to keep. And it is these things after all, which you will carry with you until you decide to carry them no more.

Does anybody want any used purple leggings?