David and I are signed up for a session on down-sizing to be held at one of our local retirement homes later in May. I always feel out-of-place if we visit these places because everyone is “so old” and everything they own is stuffed in one room or a small apartment. I don’t feel old, however that feels. Also, David says he is going to die in this house. That doesn’t mean I am going to follow him. I tell him he cannot die until we get rid of all the accumulated junk. By accumulation, I mean everything from the cardboard cores in the center of toilet paper rolls to the plastic containers that were once full of some cleaning product or other. He saves everything. I cleaned his bed room and shop both times he was hospitalized with joint replacements, and tossed many things out, but he missed nothing. 
I completed a graduate degree in History May 2012 at age 70. Before I retired, I was the manager of an economics group in a large corporation until 1989. After that. I worked for the Census Bureau and retired permanently in 2006.
When I am not reading, I am gardening.
I’ve long said one of the kindest gifts people can give their children is to dispose of as much as possible so kids don’t have to have to sort through it all. Easier said than done. You hit a nerve here, as I really need to make this the year I practice what I preach.
Arkansas Pattie has it exactly right. I’ve read blogs/websites that give children of old people an opportunity to talk about how they DO NOT WANT THE STUFF!
We’ve made enough moves since aging to have reduced. But still too many beads, books (righteously dispose of some, then buy more), and paper, always paper.
We have been in an apartment for the last four years. We downsized considerably when we sold our house and moved here. Now we are going back into a house next month. Let the accumulating begin! Actually, we’re both pretty good at getting rid of extraneous stuff….it’s just getting around to it that’s the problem.
What a good idea, a downsizing event. I keep trying to have one in my house but the Hub won’t let me.
Good luck!
Unless you really don’t like your next of kin and want to punish them, purging is a great idea. Your have inspired me to become more ruthless with my junk. I really like my next of kin.
A gender opposite here. I’m the throw out guy; beautiful wife Sandy is the pack rat (oops, saver of things).
David and I are not pack rats. We have a filing cabinet in which we store our tax returns and other important papers. We have an accordion folder in which we store this year’s donation receipts, bank interest statements, business expenses, etc., for our income tax returns. Finally, we keep a large shopping bag in which go our recent correspondence and bills; we throw these out the following year. As for clothes, it all fits in our closet, which never overflows. So, yeah, we are organized and neat people. Lol.
This is very interesting! My husband is also the supreme pack rat. It was a good thing we moved to Hawaii because he was forced to get rid of stuff. Granted my poor daughter had to keep some things for him in the attic, but not much. Good luck with your clean up. I think I’ll go look at my closet right now.
Oh, my you sound worse off than we are. No toiletpaper rolls here…they go in the recycle and actually get recycled. Right now we are in the best shape we have ever been in, and we still have way, way too much stuff. If you don’t use something in a year, you will never use it. Out it goes. I’m so sorry about David.
Stay strong! I still have boxes and boxes in our house from when my mother downsized for a move from her home to a studio apartment in 2009. My efforts to deal stalled several months later when I became more involved in doctors’ visits with her and with my mother-in-law.
In Dec. 2011, I added more boxes when we emptied her apartment after her Dec. 6 death. Then there is the lowering recognition that Walter and I are both pack rats. I am going to invoke your clearing-out spirit and get to work. The alternative is to be one of those couples living in a prison of papers and junk stacked to the ceiling. No, no, no!
My neighbor is in a house with junk stacked to the ceiling. I tell David he must get his act together before something happens to one of us.