Hints of a Future Problem

Mother loves this story. She tells it with absolute delight, practically giddy. Meanwhile, I cringe every time.

Long before I was born (in a galaxy far away) a company moved my family 480 miles to another state. Her second husband’s employer paid for the entire relocation, back when companies still did that for employees they valued.

Mom wasn’t new to big moves. She’d already crossed state lines with three kids in tow. What she was new to, I suspect, was having help. And maybe the novelty of taking all her things with her.

Her new husband, a brilliant engineer working on cutting‑edge projects, had been transferred. The national moving company promised the full treatment: they’d assess the house, schedule the move, pack everything, load the truck, drive it to the new home, and unpack it. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

The scheduler came, strolled through the house, made a few notes, and booked the date.

Moving day arrived. The truck pulled up. The movers unloaded their supplies and got to work.

They packed. And packed. And packed.

Every time they opened a door, they found more. Stuff inside stuff. Layers of belongings tucked into every possible niche. They got halfway through loading the truck before realizing they had wildly underestimated the contents of the house.

Mom has always been gifted at filling every inch of space. I remember a brief window after I was born when the house looked beautifully decorated. It might have been full, but you couldn’t tell. That was before the tipping point—before critical mass—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The movers had to call for backup: more people, more supplies, and another truck. They had allotted half a truck for a family of five in the early 1960s. That sounds absurd now, but mid‑century minimalism was in style. People owned less. At least, most people did.

I don’t know how many movers there were or how long it took. Mom has told me, I’m sure. But in my mind, it looks like an ant colony relocating the entire nest. Excessive, overwhelming—and she revels in it, like Scarlett O’Hara sweeping through the house in her drapes.

Does the moving company still tell this story as a warning to their assessors? 

Eventually, the move was completed. The new house was larger, in a beautiful community. I saw the home a few years ago—it’s still lovely.

But that move was a warning sign of what was coming. Without a 1960s version of Kondo or Döstädning (Swedish Death Cleaning) to rein things in, the accumulation grew. It took over Mom’s life, her kids’ lives, and now her grandkids’ lives. Some families pass down businesses or wealth. My mother passed down dreaded boxes filled with newspaper clippings, screws, and rocks.

Recently, my brother and I talked about when Mom shifted into full‑blown consumerism. He remembers her buying and buying and buying. He remembers the avalanche of books. When he was little, they didn’t own books—they went to the library. By the time I came along (four moves and a new husband later), Mom was building walls of bookshelves into a tiny two‑bedroom house.

She read so many Reader’s Digest books that I remember her hiding the packages from Dad. I never understood why—he read them right after she finished.

By then, the semi‑trailer was already sitting in the yard, filled with twenty years of belongings and the remnants of her first family.

Now I look at my own home and worry. I’m divorced and downsized. I used to love living out of my car in a weekend‑warrior way—bouncing between college and the outdoors. Now I’m raising a kid in an environment that looks uncomfortably similar to my own childhood.

I keep telling myself this stuff isn’t staying here. I’m just a layover between Mom and its final destination. But the truth is, some of these items have traveled through four states and who knows how many moves.

My emergency‑preparedness instincts don’t help. I save things most people my age wouldn’t dream of keeping. Who needs a 50‑year‑old juicer, a canning kettle, and jars when they live in a tiny apartment and never can anything? Who needs three months of food? Why are there two bows and a quiver of arrows? Why do I have both a large and a small safe?

It’s gotten so ridiculous that I’m using my grandparents’ fishing tackle boxes as sewing kits. I know—you’re jealous.

Just last month, the sacred family bread box bounced from Mom’s storage to my brother, to me, and now it’s headed back to him again.

I fantasize about setting all of it on fire. Mom gave it to me with full permission to do whatever I want with it. And yet I can’t bring myself to dump it in a landfill.

Honestly, I think I need those movers... to move it to a dumpster.

Photo courtesy of my brother.