Diamond Rings And Things

Think about the diamond rings, the houses, the cars. Hold onto them and you take on the maintenance fees, the taxes, the storage space. And then ask yourself how often you actually use any of it. Do you really want your time and money bound up in keeping these things fed? The number you still genuinely want is probably smaller than the number you own, and the thrill you felt the day you first got each one has a way of going quiet over the years.

Does that make me sound liberal or conservative? Possibly a bit of both. Picture the celebrities and financial heavyweights who keep more than one home, someone like Oprah, deciding to share or hand over the places they rarely occupy so other people could actually live in them. Count how many families that might shelter. People need food, water, and sanitation, plus a roof that holds heat in and walls built on a solid foundation. They need a place where the night isn't broken by gunfire, where a stray bullet won't find some bystander who did nothing to deserve it.

Sure, the wealthy maintaining all these properties puts people to work. But how many of those workers are citizens earning a fair wage and keeping reasonable hours? How are they treated once the lights are off? Do we offer the lowest among us anything close to what we offer the highest? Look at the world we've built and ask whether that answer sits well.

I'm not against beautiful objects. I keep a glass collection, and I loved every bit of the search and the buying of each piece. When it's passed down someday, I'd like it to stay whole, a collection. Still, if a tornado flattened this house and shattered every last piece, I would not end my life over it. Lose a cat or a dog and I'd grieve. Lose a person and I'd carry that forever. The glass is just glass.

Fine things, collectible cars, a mansion stacked with gold and silver and gemstones. Can any of it stand in for love and affection that never came, for a house heavy with negative thinking and the occasional storm of real anger? I'd trade a fair amount of it for a cuddle now and then, a smile, a grin across the room. For sex that isn't a scoreboard of who had the most orgasms or who landed the best-looking partner. Plenty of couples who share nothing, and who have no interest in sharing anything, still pair off for the mechanics of it.

What a relationship is supposed to leave behind is two people feeling closer and wanting to come back for more. They learn each other. They're not together only to end up in bed. Affection, respect, the sense of being cherished: that's part of the glue. A relationship isn't a vehicle for producing a child or servicing a hard-on that lust kicked up.

Children aren't dolls to dress up and parade around. Wealthy families used to do exactly that, and the kids often ended up closer to the nanny than to their own mother and father. Swap in the babysitter and the pattern holds today. "Children should be seen and not heard" was once the rule of the house. A parent can get so wrapped up in outside pursuits that the spouse and the kids drop down the list. I once dated a man who was in a bowling league nearly every night of the week. Want to guess where he took me on a date?

So, boiled down to a handful of words: when is enough enough? Why are so many people decluttering their homes now, and some of them their whole lives? Why do we keep getting told to toss clothes and furniture and accessories that are "out of date" but nowhere near worn out? I've long thought there should be some shared storage spot where things no longer useful to one family could land, and anyone who needed something would look there first. The second-hand stores have multiplied, and plenty of people now scan the clearance aisle as a matter of course. Some were pushed into it recently. Others, like me, have been doing it for years, back when it wasn't the fashionable thing to do.

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