By Marty Round

A few months ago I wrote an article about downsizing.  Some of you may remember it and felt a bit guilty.  At that time I admitted being unable to tackle my enormous collection of books.  No more!  When I got out of the hospital at the end of March, my family was here for a couple of weeks and they shamed me into doing more weeding out.

My widowed daughter-in-law helped me with the books in my bedroom, at least those that were in plain sight!  As I sat in my wheelchair, she would hold a book up.  It was hard to admit that at almost 79 I probably would not get around to reading them all.  So I had to be selective.  I will,and no, probably not.  She then picked out the ones she thought she would like to read, and the rest she took back to Williamsburg to her public library.

While my son and family were here, he would ask me about items around the house.  He worded it this way, “Mom, is this something you would take with you to a new home?”  In that way, many of the knickknacks my husband just had to have were given to either the Trinity Thrift Shop or to the Betty Griffin Store nearby.  I was told that some of the items that were taken to Trinity never reached the shop, that someone bought them as they were being taken out of the car.  “One man’s junk is another’s treasure!”

Later, a college friend of 60 years flew down from the Philly area and we did more sorting through books…the ones stashed in my husband’s bureau and the ones hidden away in the cupboards under the built-ins in the living room.  This time the whole discard pile went to the Betty Griffin store, probably to be sold for 50 cents or a dollar!

Yes, I loathed seeing these treasures (my books) disappear, but reality has begun to set in.  There are not enough years left to read all those books.  Am I done unloading stuff? Not by a long shot, but each time I go through a closet or a drawer and discard something, I am closer to my goal.  Just exactly what is that goal?  Probably life in a two bedroom condo, not in a 3,000 plus square foot house with a second story!

But probably the most difficult goodbye I endured was the day I turned my 2003 Crown Victoria (fondly known as “The Boat” by my tennis friends) over to Hyundai of St Augustine and came away with a 2020 Tucson.  It is a great car and I know that I needed to have a vehicle with the safety features offered in the Tucson, but sadly lacking in the Ford.  One of these days I may actually drive it, but not until I can safely walk with just a cane.  In the meantime I mourn the loss of my Crown Vic; it only had 88,000 miles on it!