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I cleaned out the house, gave and threw everything away and left the country. No big deal. Not things like pictures of course but I have those stored digitally anyway.
I don't think I'd care about maybe 95% of my possessions, because they're replaceable and I have excellent home owner's insurance. I'm fully covered against anything, and the items of value are scheduled, so I'd honestly not mind just getting the check for the cash and starting over again *with those items*.
Where I would be sad is the stuff that is irreplaceable. Some people here are just not thinking of the big picture and it's baffling. It's great to be minimalist, it's great to emphasize how "stuff is just stuff," but for instance I have a box full of cards that my mom gave me over the years, she's been dead now for 12 years, and that's the last "stuff" of hers that I have left. I can read her sweet notes she left me in the past, over birthdays and Christmases and other occasions, and there's no replacing that kind of thing. I have the cards my GF has given me over the years, and while it wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't have them all, I'd be sad about it because it would be like part of my past with her was just destroyed. Not the better part (our memories!), but it wouldn't make me happy! lol.
Anything else, well, I don't have all of my work backed up to the Cloud. I have most of it there. I keep a Cloud backup of my most critical documents but at the moment I'm susceptible to a fire in a way I shouldn't be. In the past, we kept all raw copies of my feature film and the footage, sound, music, etc. in different physical locations. I had a computer and a backup RAID at my dad's house and my own copy here. Now, they're all under this roof, which isn't ideal. I'm not really sure what to do about it though because 4-5 TB of stuff is too large for me to deal with the Cloud, and a hard drive in a vault somewhere would need to be checked routinely. Ideally, I'll store a hard drive with a friend or something in the future and check it every year, about as much as I can do, I suppose. That would be a critical loss.
The rest of the stuff would purely be a pain in the butt to rebuy, like my various collectibles, there are some that are also one-of-a-kind in the entire world, they're irreplaceable. Original pieces of art for instance or special versions of a collectible (#1 of 500 for instance). I'm not that stuff-obsessed, though, cut me a check for the value of these items and I'll shrug and move on. It's no big deal honestly. But the personal stuff, that would hurt, for sure.
Location: San Ramon, Seattle, Anchorage, Reykjavik
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Cope? I'd say good riddance and a great chance to buy new for the relatively few things we actually need. Everything I have that's important to me and my family - photos, documents, music - are stored in the cloud as a backup. I don't collect anything but memories so nothing of value there. Everything else can be replaced.
In Buddhism, the loss of one's possessions equates with freedom.
And thankfully, younger generations are becoming less materialistic, more interested in experiences. Plus they probably have a lot of their best stuff on the Cloud.
I feel stress accumulating more possessions (especially of value). When I'm ready to move for retirement I will happily eliminate 80-90% of my stuff.
Arguably the more important factor for those whose homes have been destroyed is financial and the busy need to put their lives back together.
Agree. I find it amusing that so many parents keep a bunch of their junk because "My children will want them someday." In nearly all cases, they don't want Mom and Dad's old junk. They have plenty of their own, they don't care about possessions, or they think the items are old fashioned and dated and they're just going to give it to charity. I never cared about stuff. When I move, I get rid of nearly all of it. It saves me the trouble of packing. Possessions wear a person down, both physically and emotionally.
As I watched the news about Hurricane Michael and all of the destruction, I found myself thinking about how would I cope if my home was obliterated, or nearly completely destroyed. Thankfully I have not personally lived through a major natural disaster (knock wood), but each time one happens, I find myself feeling unnerved by the thought of losing everything.
Probably, for me, the part of it that bothers me the most is - how would I be able to even remember all the items I had lost? Years ago my laptop crashed and I lost everything on it because I hadn't backed it up. I got a new one and had to start trying to remember all the stuff on there that had been lost.
Thankfully, I was just dealing with a laptop, and so I just lost pictures and documents. My entire life wasn't turned upside down, but it felt very strange to realize I couldn't remember all that I had stored on there.
Have you or someone you've known gone through something like this? How did you/they cope? How many of your current possessions do you think you'd be able to remember if your home went through a major storm, hurricane, flood, etc..?
Trust me, I think I'd know everything I lost. Daughter and I have SUV's, hub has a pickup, my son a Jeep. My basement has rubbermade bins filled with possessions we never unpacked when we moved here because the house was temporary. I miss my stuff.
I also have a few bins with some of my dads possessions that I don't know what I'd do if I lost it. My dad passed in 2006 from cancer. My dad had given me things he wanted me to have before he passed so one or 2 bins has that stuff. I have some of his main rescue squad things which was a huge part of who he was. When he passed I wasn't given a choice of what I wanted; things were dropped to me in trash bags (I'm crying)... but I value the little they left at my door while I was out.
I drove my dad in my 1st new car, a 2002 Mazda Tribute which got totaled April 2017. The car has a lot of meaning to me, we spent a lot of time talking 3 days a week going to his appointments. I would have fixed the car but my hub refused. Took me 7+ months to donate the car to a charity. I still can't love my new SUV because I'm so emotionally attached to my old one, wondering what I did to deserve losing it.
If a storm was coming, the main bins for sure. Some of my more expensive dolls in bins, the hand made dolls I made, paperwork of course and computers. I also have a box of old hard drives I need recovered.
I just hope I'm able to have a warning to get out.
We've done a couple of long-distance moves where we got rid of nearly everything. Of course, it was by choice, so not as horrifying, but it was still gut-wrenching and traumatic.
Next week, we move again, and will take only what fits in the car. But we knew that was the plan when we moved here, and made a point not to get attached to the stuff we accumulated.
It is freeing, getting rid of all the stuff holding you to a place, but I imagine it would take a long time to get to that mindset if the loss was not your choice.
In Buddhism, the loss of one's possessions equates with freedom.
And thankfully, younger generations are becoming less materialistic, more interested in experiences. Plus they probably have a lot of their best stuff on the Cloud.
I feel stress accumulating more possessions (especially of value). When I'm ready to move for retirement I will happily eliminate 80-90% of my stuff.
Arguably the more important factor for those whose homes have been destroyed is financial and the busy need to put their lives back together.
Love it.
I had a house fire once. Lost almost everything I owned. Oddly enough, the one thing people seemed horrified at the loss of was what was salvageable--photographs. I had boxes of them in a closet that was the farthest away from the fire. The very worst most awful loss in the fire was my cat. The firefighters tried to revive him with oxygen, but he was gone.
The only clothing I owned after that night was what I had on. Papers were gone, dishes were gone, keepsakes were gone. My five-year-old daughter's bedroom was gutted. Toys and stuffed animals burn well.
But, there was also a sense of freedom, as the person above says. To not have possessions own you is a freeing feeling. That was in 1997. Ever since, I have not allowed myself to get too attached to "things". None of it really matters.
We've done a couple of long-distance moves where we got rid of nearly everything. Of course, it was by choice, so not as horrifying, but it was still gut-wrenching and traumatic.
Next week, we move again, and will take only what fits in the car. But we knew that was the plan when we moved here, and made a point not to get attached to the stuff we accumulated.
It is freeing, getting rid of all the stuff holding you to a place, but I imagine it would take a long time to get to that mindset if the loss was not your choice.
My hub who's 8 years older is into down sizing everything we own; saying when we go only one small Uhaul. I'm not at the same stage as he is. Neither of my kids have their own place yet so I'm not giving my 25 bins of Christmas stuff to them yet and 2 beautiful 7ft trees. I also have to sell the majority of Barbie's I have. Maybe in 8 to 10 years I'll be ready to down size like he is. I give people who can do it a lot of credit.
Agree. I find it amusing that so many parents keep a bunch of their junk because "My children will want them someday." In nearly all cases, they don't want Mom and Dad's old junk. They have plenty of their own, they don't care about possessions, or they think the items are old fashioned and dated and they're just going to give it to charity. I never cared about stuff. When I move, I get rid of nearly all of it. It saves me the trouble of packing. Possessions wear a person down, both physically and emotionally.
Amen.
A few years after my house fire, I rented a house where I lived with my daughter for five years. When I went to move, I was disgusted by how much crap I had accumulated in those five years.
Now I live in a small condo, and stuff still finds its way in, but now I go through regularly and take any stuff I haven't used and give it to a veteran's charity thrift store that comes and picks it up. For example, my daughter gave me a rice cooker because she had two for some reason. I came across the stupid thing in a drawer and gave it away. Never used it. I might make rice three times a year, and I can make it just fine in a pot on the stove and I will use that pot for other things, too.
I also have to watch out for other people trying to dump their crap on me when they clean out their houses. One friend brought me three hideous paintings that she said she thought I'd like because they were an ocean theme and I live near the shore. After I took them, I thought, "What the hell did I do that for? She's just dumping her unwanted junk on me." I gave them to the thrift place, but the next time she tried to give me something, I said no.
My childhood home flooded several years ago. It was a split level, and 3 of the 4 floors, including all contents, were completely destroyed. Honestly, most of the stuff lost was disappointing but not devastating, especially when you find them during clean-up and they are covered in nasty river water and mud and sewage. Some things were sad, like the piano I spent hours and hours on that literally floated away. Or now, when my kids want to see pictures of us when we were younger but all the pictures and yearbooks are gone.
The worst part of it all was the long-term displacement and daily uncertainty. Where will you sleep, what will you wear, who can watch the cats, what are you going to eat since your fridge is gone, where do you start, how long will this all take? And SO MUCH paperwork, for insurance and FEMA and dealing with work absences and just finding resources that are available.
People are surprisingly resilient. And in the end, the house was stripped to the studs, cleaned and repaired, with fresh paint and carpet that was overdue anyway, and an excuse for my mom to get new furniture.
Same thing for my husband: his house was hit by a tornado, cars totaled, doors and windows broken, house flooded, roof pulled off. He has less of a connection to "stuff" by nature, plus his ex had already taken almost anything of value since they were in the process of a divorce at the time. So again the worst part of it was the temporary relocation, dealing with work while all this other stuff was going on, etc.
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