Over the past week, there have been two large-scale decluttering events in my life.
Longtime readers of this column will recall that my wife's family has a small house on a lake in central New Hampshire that's been in their family for more than 120 years. Her parents used to spend 4 to 6 months of every year there during the summer, and family members and friends would come to visit at the lake. Over the years I've written several columns about recharging my batteries for a week or two up there, sitting on the porch, watching the sunset, sleeping a little late, swimming and kayaking in the lake.
It is now passing to the next generation, and it's up to my wife and her siblings to decide the future of the house, and what work it may need to make it more comfortable and more livable. So a bunch of us descended on the house this past week and made some major decisions, chucking some furniture that was frankly unstable to sit or sleep on, and clearing out an office space that my in-laws had used for decades.
As happens in every family, opening up these office drawers revealed a lot. Memories got dredged up -- some happy, some sad -- and we discovered all the things that had been saved through the years. Everybody left feeling good about the place, confident that it was ready to move forward for the next generation.
