As long as I use my things and enjoy them, I'm not giving them up. Why should I? I'm not dead yet. Maybe it's time to move along and get back to the thread topic, "Babying the Elderly." Thankfully I'm still active and capable of taking care of myself, so I don't need babying. On the other hand, I have a friend with Parkinson's and she definitely does need special care these days. It frustrates her mightily that her body is failing.
That's part of the thread topic, the idea that seniors can't make such decisions for themselves. True, as they get older, people do sometimes or eventually get into a position where they can't make reasonable or safe decisions for themselves but, too often, their adult children or others decide that they've reached that point long before they have. Children start looking for a nursing home for their mom or dad before they're ready to leave the home they've paid for, or they make plans for their parents to come to live with them if they have the space. While it might be nice to have these options, it shouldn't be assumed that older people can't decide for themselves whether they need to reconsider their housing choices, downsize, or whatever. Let mom or dad worry about what to do with mom or dad as long as they are able, and don't simply assume they aren't because they've reached a specified age.
Ya know what? Now that I think about it, half the stuff in the basement belongs to my kids! Hubby wants to throw out all my stuff and I want to throw out all his stuff. We have reached detente. The house will someday implode.
Oh when I think about it, the houses in the midwest and east have basements and attics and garages which are loaded with stuff and I believe when we finally sold our parents house we forgot to go into the attic to see what was up there, so whatever was there it went with the house.
My neighbor, across the street, is an auctioneer, specializing in estate auctions. Frequently, he will be asked to auction off the contents of a house after an elderly person has died, whose children aren't interested in going through their parent's things. He told me once that it wasn't unusual for him to find gold, silver, and jewelry stashed away in strange places and, since he doesn't auction off books, they go in the dumpster regardless of the value, or even if cash were stashed away in the pages of the books, as I used to do. For that matter, we have a couple of storage boxes that look like books. Rather than a safe, which most people will recognize as potentially holding valuables, people tend to hide their valuables. I wonder how much gold, silver, or cash ends up in the dumpster, or possibly even in the hands of a dishonest auctioneer, since I imagine there might be some temptation there.
If someone tries to baby me, it better be my woman, prior to an amorous romp. Anyone else would get my foot up their @$$! I have no intention of being dependent on others, ever. When I can't do what I want to do, when I'm unable to work on my own stuff, then I'm done. Actually, these days, I work as hard as I can, telling myself that a massive heart attack would probably not be the worst way to go and, as I've done almost everything I set out to do, this time around, I'm cool with that. In truth, this world sickens me, because of the actions of our species. I have a lot of tools that I use, a lot of musical equipment that I rarely use, a bunch of high-priced suits that I don't wear, tons of books that I'll never read, again, a bunch of furniture that fits my house, a lot of cookware that I use. When I'm gone, my heirs can get a railroad car dumpster dropped on my property, and shovel my stuff into it. I guarantee I won't give a rat's behind!
My greenhouse friend also buys & sells gold. I was at his store no longer than a month ago and a guy came in with a bag of jewelry. The guy works for a refuse collection point the next county over, and is always finding stuff that just gets thrown away. The day I was there, he walked in with a Zi0ploc bag of jewelry he had accumulated, and he walked out with $600 in his pocket...and my friend also made a profit when he sold it. The guy told me he funded a Disney vacation for he, his wife & their kid that way.
My M I L had money stashed all over the house. I used to do estate sales and auctions and was prepping for one till I started hauling money out in gym bags. That is how we could afford to keep her in the nursing home for 9 years.
My mother was a hoarder. She had dementia. My siblings and I were going through her house that was crammed full of stuff (several 30 gallon garbage cans full of yarn bought at yard sales even though she had not knitted in decades), ending up in this tiny room off of the basement where she re-potted her African violets. My sister-in-law casually pulled a pot from the pile of crap under a table just to look at it, and stuffed underneath it all was a manila envelope. In that envelope were almost 500 shares of Allstate stock certificates! We looked at the sea of stuff around us, then looked at each other in horror, knowing that we couldn't toss a single thing without going through it all. Days were consumed. We found nothing else of value.
Twenty-five years ago, I knew a lady, was at her house and she took me into her garage to look for something. Talking about a garage full of stuff and absolutely no room for her small truck. As I was looking around, I noticed the bumper and headlights of a vehicle, completely buried in boxes of stuff. I was amazed and shocked. Come to find out, all of the boxes of stuff had belonged to her parents, after they had passed away. To me, a 100% fire hazard that, obviously, the lady didn't think about or care about.
Thankfully I have good sense and for sure NO HOARDING, I get rid of stuff almost daily. I own a wonderful bedroom set and my ex and I bought it at a furniture factory probably 50 yrs ago and would love to see it go to a good home when I'm gone. It's weathered moves over the years....strong sturdy great furmiture. And then my art work that I did for 3 yrs, I'd hate to see them in a dump, I've been giving some pieces away to people who come into my house and comment on them..... .
The house of a former classmate of mine caught fire and neighbors came to watch as did I, and the flames had burned away part of the side of the house and roof and you could see stacks of old newspapers and magazines in the attic.
Talk about fire hazard. A friend years ago was dating a guy who had stacks of newspapers lined up in his living room, a path to walk thru the stacks....sounds like a sickness to me.