I attacked a closet today, and I don't know who won

In just two weeks, two college-age women are joining us for the summer, living in two spare rooms at the front of our house.  They are interning at World Relief, a ministry which assists the large number of under-served immigrants in our county.

One of the bedrooms was occupied this past year by our son-in-law's brother who was doing his student teaching for a semester at a local high school.  That room is ready to roll.

But the other bedroom has become the residence of "things without a home," items without a defined future, things we have used in the past, a few mementos of childhood, stacks of photographs without albums, old prom dresses left behind, and books I have saved for our tech-savvy grand kids when they come to visit. Stacked against the back of the closet were framed pictures leftover from previous residences that never seemed to find a wall in this house. My excuse has been a holdover from my childhood, "but we might need it someday."

I have no one to blame, but myself.  As each of our girls left home, so did the boxes of their things.  It is incredible how much stuff they want to save when it is in your attic or basement, and how little the sentimental value when it takes up space in their own closets.  Over the years, I have discovered that the longer things dwell with you, the harder it is to cast them away, as if they have grown attached and been given family names. 

There is nothing empty about being an empty-nester.

I have always kept an ongoing box or bag of "giveaways," because it is easier to purge one item at a time than a whole closet in an afternoon. 

But in my sentimental reluctance, the contents had expanded to overcome the space. And now, I needed an empty closet for our guest.   It was time to go, either donated to charity or squeeze onto a spare shelf in another closet.  I sifted through baby clothes that no one will ever wear.  They seemed cute at the time, but not so much now.  I made a stack of the prom dresses to donate, remembering the trauma and drama that drenched those occasions.  Those dresses were worn multiple times by our girls and their friends, hanging in the closet, heavy with memories.  Time to share them again, departing our home to delight young women whom we do not know.

I had held onto these things, thinking that perhaps they would be useful again.  But I came to the realization that these things are not the anchors of our girls' childhood.  Once these things are gone, strong memories will still be there, deeper perhaps, because they are not attached to a hanger or stuffed in a box.

As I discard, I remind myself that I am not throwing anything away, but just making sure that our lives are open to another chapter, unhindered by clutter.  Some things will stay, but have now become more valuable because they are not lost among those things that are not.

The relationships are what is significant, not the stuff.
And what is precious never fades.