It’s finally feeling like Autumn, with cooler temperatures, gorgeous foliage and pumpkins galore. There’s something about Autumn that makes me want to “hunker” down” in my warm house, cooking substantial meals and making sure my cupboards are well-stocked with supplies. But this year, I have to admit my urge to stock up has gotten just a teeny bit out of hand.
I’ve never understood what motivates hoarders. My theory has always been, “why have two of something when one will do?” But then the pandemic hit, and in the early stages that sometimes meant empty grocery shelves, making it hard to find basic necessities. And although I can almost always find what I need these days, those memories seem to have stuck with me. Because now I find myself wanting to stock up supplies like a frantic squirrel storing nuts in anticipation of a really, really, bad Winter.
My usual minimalist tendencies have disappeared. Now I wander the aisles of the grocery store, tossing things into my cart whether I need them or not. My kitchen cupboards are full, and so is the cabinet in the basement I use to store extra groceries and paper goods. I have a small bin full of cleaning supplies, disinfectants and face masks. And yet sometimes I still wonder, “do I have enough?”
The problem with always wanting more is that nothing ever seems to be enough, and that’s a horrible way to live. I know that my desire to keep adding to my stash is a reaction to the uncertainty of the times we’re living in, but I hate feeling that I’m somehow dropping the ball if I don’t have enough supplies in my house to see me through at least 2022. It’s time for me to stop the madness.
It’s true that no one knows when, or how, this pandemic will end. It’s also true that there may still be shortages, and I can’t always count on running to the grocery store to pick up something I need. But I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’d rather risk doing without something for a little while, because that’s preferable to constantly worrying about whether I have “enough.” And I think I’d rather trust that friends and family would step forward to share what they have if necessary, just as I would gladly share my supplies with anyone who needed them. And I know this is true, because they have shared, and so have I.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of choosing how I want to live. Do I want to live in an “everyone for himself” world, or do I want to keep a little faith in the people around me? Do I want to be a person who compulsively buys things out of fear of the future, or do I want to once again be happy with a reasonable amount of supplies in my house?
This pandemic has changed many things in my life, and in many cases there’s just not much I can do about it. But I’ve decided that it is a not going to turn me into a hoarder, and that’s something I can control.
Because sometimes, I think, we just have to trust that once we’ve done everything we can to make something happen that it often does….if we can just wait a little while. Finn may still annoy us now and then, but his behavior has improved enormously since he first moved in. We kept my son’s dogs last week, and the three of them got along just great with no issues at all. That’s progress. And I may not have a bumper crop of tomatoes just yet, but I do have enough to make a tasty addition to the salad I’m serving with dinner tonight.
When I was seven years old, my father decided to become a minister and enrolled in a local seminary. My family moved into the campus housing which meant that we had to give up our beloved dog Sandy. Luckily, we had good family friends who were willing to take her. They lived nearby and we would be able to see Sandy often. I know it sounds like an ideal solution, but the truth was that I hated giving Sandy away, even to family friends. I not only mourned the loss of my dog, but I worried that she would miss us and that they wouldn’t treat her as well as we did. How could I be sure that the boys weren’t teasing her, and that the family was giving her enough attention? How could Sandy possibly be as happy with their family as she was with ours?
Luckily, my fears proved ungrounded as our friends provided Sandy with an incredibly loving home until she died at the ripe old age of sixteen. The transition from one family to another may have confused her for a little while, but she was well and truly taken care of for her entire life. We are still close to those friends, and recently one of the sons (one of the boys my seven-year old self didn’t quite trust with her dog) recently texted me a photo of him holding Sandy when she was in her twilight years. “She would sit in my lap and let me pet her like this every night,” he said. It is one of the sweetest photos I have ever seen.
Muddling Through My Middle Age 