Clearing Clutter

We are in the process of clearing out a couple of decades of accumulated stuff. Like most I have spoken with who have done this, a tremendous amount of it is going to the discard pile. Some of that pile is going to recycling, some for donation and the rest is increasing our impact on a landfill somewhere. The last part is far from perfect, but I suppose it just boils down to whether it arrives in smaller bits or one big pile. The solution is to acquire less stuff, and going through this should make that easier.

I spent a couple of so hours this afternoon clearing out another room. I was struck by the obdurate permanence of something that has almost no value after long enough, like records for surgeries 15 years ago and the tennis racket that fell apart while I was figuring out if I'd play again. It seems that the stuff you don't care about will find a corner and live forever.

Unfortunately this isn't true for the critters that I have spent much of my life with - our cats, the horses at the barn and some of the pets that I have cared for as a pet sitter. I've lost a few cats as an adult. One was the only breathing creature thing, including people, who had been a constant part of my daily life for nearly 20 years when he died. I caught the last days of a pet's life on a sitting job, and we've lost two of the old ponies since I started volunteering. One died from cancer and the other had years of issues with lameness that finally went beyond remediation. I spent extra time with each in their final season, mostly hosing them down or grooming them.

It doesn't seem fair that a bank statement from an account closed 15 years ago gets to outlive the creatures that were always there to hug on a bad day, or go on a ride or a walk to forget about things.