Congratulations, Heidi! According to my newly devised standards. your son is officially grown up! I await the day, though I see that I am a big part of the problem! Thanks for writing.

This makes me feel better, Nancy, A whole walled-off room! Makes me wonder if Egyptologists ever theorized if the pyramids were storage areas parents kept for their grown kids, not tombs and send-offs for the afterlife!

You are so right, Sue. My brothers had the task of sorting through our parents house because I lived on the opposite coast and had young kids when our parents died. While musing one day about whether or not to keep some memento from my daughters, my brother said, “THROW IT OUT!” And I never did like my mother’s jewelry she kept wanting me to have! Complex, indeed.

That’s inspiring, Nancy–and I see I’m onto something with the philanthropic angle. You are so right about cleaning and sorting your psyche–in fact, I wrote a whole professional paper about the psychological aspects of hoarding. Was your daughter a part of the weekend? Or has she moved on literally as well as figuratively?

It is still unsettling but this process is clarifying and seems to lift the burden of those places you need to clean and sort from your psyche. I recommend blasting music, setting aside several hours to reflect on those items and then getting them to homes where they are appreciated.