I'm reminded of Swedish death cleaning [1]. If I don't die outright, I'll try to do as much for my daughters.
When my mother died she left behind a rather large collection of collectable dolls — not my thing, and not heirlooms for sure. (They represented I think the first time she finally had disposable income — at like age 60 or so. So she collected these things she liked.)
Regardless, I wasn't about to dump them at a local Goodwill. They meant something to her and I was quite sure she would want them to go to someone who would appreciate them as much as she did — to another doll collector I thought.
The thought of the tediousness of selling them though had me packing them up and storing them first in a storage unit in Morgan Hill for several years — even after I had moved with the wife back to the Midwaste.
A trip out to California in the van-turned-RV though and I finally brought them to Nebraska — first in my garage, then down into the basement. But again they sat for years.
This year I made a kind of resolution to "live more lightly" and so began the process of putting each doll up on eBay.
I came to learn about the dolls as I created little descriptions for the listings, tried to answer the odd question that a potential bidder had. In fact in the end I ended up keeping one of the dolls in memory of my mother. (One doll for some reason I kept coming back to look at — had a hard time imagining selling it because it was so ... stunning.) My daughters also each picked out a doll to keep in memory of grandma.
Yeah, heirlooms, etc. can be a kind of burden. As a parent myself now I make a point to let my girls know that they can toss anything of mine they wish to once I shrug off this mortal coil.
I had a kitchen fire in the middle of the night during the winter and I'm really trying to simplify things as I get set back up. Direct damage was fairly constrained to kitchen but the whole house was cleared out for cleaning due to smoke. I'm being pretty selective with what fiddly heirloom things I put back on walls in particular and have generally dumped a lot of stuff which I had out because I had it.
It's hard. I have/had some things I really like and/or are useful. But although I have a fair bit of storage space in my house, I'm taking a really close look at what will ever emerge from the box it's stored in.
> even after I had moved with the wife back to the Midwaste.
Do people call the United States midwest the "Midwaste" now? Is it meant to insult people because of where they live?
People have been making fun of the Midwest for over a century if not longer.
The only thing that annoys non-Midwesterners is that anything they think of to make fun of the Midwest with, has already been said about the Midwest by the Midwest.
Protip: the Midwest is horrible and full, go back to New York or California.
Another protip: the midwest is not every state that isn't New York or California. The South exists too. There is nothing quite like telling someone what state you are from in LA and then being asked, "What was it like growing up in the midwest?" when you didn't.
What do you mean Texas isn't in the midwest?
Which means we should keep doing it right?
Yes
>Do people call the United States midwest the "Midwaste" now? Is it meant to insult people because of where they live?
I live in the midwest and this is the first time I've seen/heard it.