Hoarding? Not so much

I've often thought of myself as a hoarder. Certainly there is the damning evidence of my overflowing basement and jammed-full file cabinets. And there certainly is the Grandma Myrtie gene. But recently I realized that hoarding is very different from accumulating, which is what I have done.

In truth, I'm quite the cleaner-outer. How satisfying it is to take a load of clothes to Goodwill. How liberating to give the younger generation a bunch of old jewelry I no longer wear, to throw out files no long needed. I have my share of personality disorders, but hoarding, as I understand it, is not among them. 

I've given some thought to this lately because a month or so ago I unearthed  the daily calendars I have been saving for much of my adult life. The oldest I've found is 1975, but I think a small cache of little Hallmark calendars from the late 60s and early 70s may yet turn up. I'm not hoarding these calendars. I'm saving them--the fossil evidence of staff meetings and doctor appointments and book club get-togethers.

I've started a project of extracting a modicum of information from the calendars to record brief summaries of the years of my life. When I finish a year (10-12 lines of text), I throw out the calendar. Ah, de-accumulating in action.

And what fun I have been having! I had totally forgotten about being on a volleyball team in 1978. And I coached Rachel's Odyssey of the Mind team! (It took me a while to decode "OM at my house.") It's been very satisfying to remember old friends I had not thought about in a long time: Diane Keaton (no, not that Diane Keaton) and Barb Nykoruk and Suzanne Hunt

Some calendar artifacts have remained a mystery. What does "Rainbow," occurring once or twice a week during 1987, mean? And who was Annette Bourget, whom I met on Saturday mornings or on weekday evenings? A massage therapist? A chiropractor? A counselor of some sort? Really mystifying is Velma Jean Glowacki, whom I noted was "off" on some Monday's and Fridays. How could I forget a name like Velma Jean, who was so important in my life I had to remember when she was "off?"

I've had to ask myself why I am devoting this time and energy to looking backward instead of forward. Do I feel the important parts of my life are over, and I'm trying to capture them? Am I afraid of becoming demented and losing my life in the process of losing my memory?  In truth, I don't think it's that dark. Mostly I just want to clean out the basement and preserve some data that would otherwise be lost forever. Important only to me.