The house is downsizing all by itself

It decided not to wait for us.

One year ago today.

This was the scene at seven minutes to midnight last New Year’s Eve as the malevolent spirit of pandemic year 2020 exited the house. We were awakened by a horrific crash and rushed downstairs to find that 10-foot-wide, nearly floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, constructed by Bill 30 years ago from boards and plastic corner braces, had wrenched themselves from the wall.

We had planned to downsize, but not like this.

As soon as I posted the picture on social media, friends rushed to commiserate. One commented, “OMG, Cathy – this is exactly what happened to me in July. The bookshelves crashed onto my desk and computer table!” Another reported, “Just finished cleaning out my teenage grandson's bedroom. It looked just like this!” Only my 97-year-old father, a retired journalist who also enjoys carpentry, sniffed, “I think an engineer might tell you that there is a limit to how high you can build a bookcase without securing it to the wall before it will wake you up in the middle of the night.”

Bill breaks in here to protest that “it was fastened to the wall, in three places!”

We cleaned up the mess on New Year’s morning and rebuilt a couple of low shelves after sorting the books into stacks to keep or donate. The shelves that fell held several hundred volumes, but that’s a fraction of the books in the house. Most of them are Bill’s, and many are specialized; we’ve already donated hundreds of those to two university libraries. Books of general interest go to our local public library for resale or to the Little Free Libraries that dot our neighborhood. But there are still several thousand to go.

Downsizing is a continuing preoccupation in the third age of life. Many of us, at least in the rich countries, are surrounded by a lifetime of clutter. Many books, papers, and photos are worth keeping, and some are important to preserve. The rest of it, not so much. And even the important stuff has got to go . . . somewhere, eventually. I’ll have more to say about this in future posts, as just about every woman my age I know is grappling with it.

Downsizing is one of those things that tend to get put off indefinitely, pushed to the bottom of the to-do list by more pressing concerns. Until you hear a crash.