Then there's all that other stuff. The stuff we keep because someone or we've convinced ourselves these objects have meaning. These objects are all that is left of a person, place, time. I know it. My dishes are for the most part the dishes my parents had when they were married. They are the same dishes my dad held onto for 30 years after they divorced. They are the same dishes I rescued from the stuff my dad was carting off to the local Sally Ann. They are the same dishes I had in my appartment. These are the dishes we eat from. Not all of them. Oh no. I actually 'topped up' these dishes with ones from the same series from eBay.

I have things in my home because my father gave them to me. I don't like them. They're not me. Yet, somehow I can't get rid of these things. These things that mean so much because when he was alive I got so little of him. So little of his time: my aunt and uncle raised me. So little of his love: he was always angry and resentful of my mere existence, I later learned. Yet, I hang on to his crap. Both literally and figuratively.