Susan Timmins: As downsizing looms, we find what really matters

I've been thinking a lot lately about things. Stuff.

We go through the first half or so of our lives collecting things -- and then later in life we find ourselves sifting through all that gathered stuff, and giving it away.

When I was in my 20s, my parents would ask me to please not buy them anything for Christmas or birthdays, that they had everything they needed and didn't want more things.

I thought they were just being gracious, not wanting me to spend my hard-earned money on them, and ignored their request. Each birthday and Christmas I would try so hard to think of a thing they didn't have, but would probably love and just didn't know they needed.

Now I get it, now that I'm the age they were then.

We begin our grownup years gathering things around us as we are building a life. We need so much, we think: furniture, dishes, pictures on the walls ... . And young people starting out now have entire other lists of needed electronics that we didn't have back then.

Then, as the years go by, you find you have a house full, with closets and cupboards and shelves overloaded.

Every month or so now I hear of yet another friend my age -- the children have grown up and moved out -- who have downsized. They have sorted through all that stuff, made decisions about what to keep and what to give away.

My husband and I are still in the house where we raised our children. As I look around at all our collected "stuff" from 33 years of marriage and 29 years of raising a family, I anticipate the job of sorting through this one day with some trepidation.

Living on a barrier island in a hurricane evacuation zone has taught us, again and again, that "things" are fleeting. Every time we evacuate, never knowing if this one will be the big one where we come home to nothing -- no "things," that is -- we have to make quick decisions on what to take with us. We leave with only what will fit in the car.

Our children had to do this from a young age, and the things they chose to take was an interesting study of their priorities over time. There were early years when my daughter's suitcase was filled with her stuffed animals, and there was the year, when entering middle school, my son thought the most precious things to save were his music CDs. We honored whatever they chose, as we all bundled our important things into the car.

My list always came down to photo albums and the insurance file.

My husband's was power tools, to mend the wreckage if the storm hit full-force.

As each storm thankfully spared us, we would be reminded again that none of our "things" really mattered -- what was important was that we were together and we were OK.

As I am getting closer to that downsizing time, and feeling more and more ready to shed the burden of so many things, I am aware of a different category I cherish. They are not the new, shiny creating-a-home things we think we have to acquire in our 20s and 30s. They are things that remind me of loved ones, and of times spent with them, of treasured times past.

They are the photos of my children that pull at my heart as I remember them in those ephemeral moments of their young lives, along with their handwritten notes and crayon pictures. There are treasures, some as simple as a granite rock from Maine, from family vacations that are filled with memories of joyous times exploring together.

There is the bracelet my mother would wear when she was going out for a fancy evening, a bracelet that floods me with memories of the smell of her perfume and the swirl of her dress that captivated my 5-year-old self. A grandmother's favorite tea cup, a great-grandmother's lamp. And on my dresser is an antique inkwell, my husband's very first Christmas gift to me, when we had been dating for just a month.

These things are important because they remind us of what really is important: the time we spend with each other and the love we share.

I used to hope that I could share the meaning these treasures hold for me with my children in a big enough way so they will hold onto them after I am gone. But then I chuckle at myself. They will have their own special things with their own special memories.

I look around at our house, and think of all the memories made here.

One day it will be time to sort through things here, to get rid of the fluff, to pare down to only the most precious things, to pretend we are evacuating.

I didn't understand in my 20s that, when I was searching for that perfect gift, my parents were not just trying to save me the time and expense of gift purchasing. They had reached a point where they truly understood that things in this life don't matter -- it's experiences and time spent with loved ones and friends that are the most precious. What they would have loved more than any gift I would send, was for me to come visit.

And I find myself now telling my children that I don't want anything for my birthday or Christmas, let's just spend some time together instead

Susan Timmins, local business owner, mother and Anna Maria Island resident, can be reached at sktimmins@aol.com.

This story was originally published April 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Susan Timmins: As downsizing looms, we find what really matters."