After church last spring, a friend and I sat in the fellowship hall with our coffee. We were talking about my blog, and about the posts I write on decluttering.
She was quiet for a minute. Then she said, “Every article I read says my kids won’t want my things. But I don’t have kids. So where does mine go?”
I didn’t have a good answer for her that day.
I thought about it the whole drive home. So much of what we hear about decluttering at our age is about children. Ask your kids. Your kids won’t want it. Don’t leave a mess for your kids.
But so many women I love don’t have children. And that advice leaves them out completely.
My friend deserved a real answer. So did every woman sitting where she was sitting.
There is nothing sad about this question. It just needs a different answer than the one most of us have been given.
So I’ll share what my friend and I talked through over the next few weeks. Where her things can go, who her people are, and one simple page that gave her real peace of mind.
The Question I’d Never Thought to Answer
My friend has one of the loveliest homes I know.
She has a china cabinet full of pretty dishes, and a quilt on the guest bed that her grandmother made. There are paintings she bought on trips, and a shelf of books she has read more than once.