Recently I was reminded again that stuff simply doesn’t matter. And by stuff I mean physical items that are just Things. Sure we go about our lives spending money obtaining goods to enjoy our lives, but in the end these are just things that don’t add any points to my imaginary life scorecard.
On Nov 25th, we came home to find a burglary had taken place. My daughter and I entered the garage hesitating, wondering why some boxes were off the shelves and on the floor. At first, I thought our cat somehow got in the garage and moved things around. But something was just… odd.
We went inside to find a smashed living room window, a ransacked master bedroom, and other randomness. Our shelter had been violated by a stranger, even our underwear drawers investigated for potential piles of money.
After the police report and forensics process, a friend came over to help board up the window. We had lost some gadgets and video games, but then we discovered that my wife’s engagement ring was also missing. She wears her wedding band but not the engagement ring. It wasn’t really that valuable in terms of money, purchased when in graduate school.
So while the ring had sentimental value, it was still just a thing. More than the material goods, it’s the feeling of violation of privacy that hurts most. The feeling that as a father I wasn’t able to stop a random person from messing with our family’s safe place.
I previously learned the lesson of not caring about stuff back in Dallas in the 90s. My mom was moving down to Dallas where my dad was living for work, and had everything from our old family home packed into a big U-haul truck. The rain was bad the day our friend drove the truck down, so we parked it in front of the house to wait. The next morning it was gone. Everything on it. A few priceless kimonos she had brought from Japan. My collection of comic books from high school (I used to be an avid collector and had over 1000 issues of various series). Furniture. Jewelry. Artwork (my mother did oil paintings as a hobby).
I stopped collecting stuff after that. In fact, I moved to Japan for two years which helped me avoid hauling stuff around. It’s much more important to just live. So many unmet necessities in the world, why box up and transport stuff that isn’t being used? Shows like Storage Wars horrify me, seeing that people have so much crap they store it for long periods of time and then lose it due to missed payments.
Unfortunately, once you have kids, stuff seems to find a way to creep back into life. I do what I can, but it’s tough to be really strict about it. I can remember some of the times when my parents reluctantly allowed me a purchase that didn’t really make sense and I eventually learned how to make better decisions. I’ll keep providing my guidance to them as they learn to deal with peer pressure and marketing.
Really I’m just rambling at this point – no plan or clean conclusion. No complaints or expectations of sympathy. Just felt the need to write. Let’s just end with this: I’m happy my family is safe, and that things are easily fixed and replaced. Stuff doesn’t own me.