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I'm Gen-X and oh my god you have no idea.

My dad was pre-Boomer (born in 1931), but he just endlessly collected stuff. Thousands of movie soundtracks and classical music albums on both LP and CD. Hundreds of DVDs. Mountains of movie memorabilia and posters. Coins. Stamps. Rare books. Antiques. That's just the major collections. Lots of minor ones- sheet music, British cigarette trading cards, and then there are not just the over 20 books he wrote, but extra copies of them. Most of them are academic texts on film. The rest is stuff like terrible poetry and bad plays that no one is interested in but I can't bring myself to get rid of.

Much of it had value, so I didn't want to just dump it. We did an auction for some of it, garage sales, a flea market stall, I ended up spending about two years selling stuff on eBay, I gave a lot to friends, the CDs eventually just had to go to Goodwill because no one wanted them.

And I'm still stuck with a ton of stuff. A garage full of stuff that I don't want to just toss because someday someone might want an almost life-size ceramic bust of Charlie Chaplin and it feels stupid to just throw it away.

Meanwhile, my also pre-boomer mom (born 1942) has been collecting antique furniture.

I think I'm just going to do an estate sale when she dies.

I have one "collection." 5 bakelite radios and one Weltron Space Ball radio/8-track player. My daughter has my permission to take them to some charity place if she doesn't want them. Preferably not Goodwill or the Salvation Army, but those are the choices you get in this town unfortunately. Nothing else I have is of any real value and I'm fine with that. And having seen what I've already gone through to get rid of all of this stuff, my daughter is too.

Edit: I forgot to say that the stuff I talked about doesn't include all the stuff I said to my brother "just take what you want" about because I really didn't want to argue about it and he was going to fuck off back to Atlanta after the funeral anyway. But he doesn't have any kids and he's 11 years older than me, so I'll probably get all that shit too one day.

Adults having to have adult conversations. Oh no

"It's not like you guys aren't going to have stuff, because guess what? Amazon is at your house every day,"

Ouch. Right in the furniture.

We are not a sentimental age

We don't want our parent's china or their ticker-tape parades

We are not a sentimental age

We're out getting high on fire escapes

We are hooking up with strangers we will never see again

We are not a sentimental age

We are not a sentimental age

...

We are not a sentimental age

On our shoulders is a boulder of a debt we cannot pay

We are not a sentimental age

Diagnosis says I tend to disengage

I'd rather have my privacy, I'd rather have my space

These are just the pills I have to take

We are not a sentimental age

https://youtu.be/VMOdzWBu8Ic

My auntie has done the opposite for fucking years : she'll come visit her mum and leave with some knicknacks she's had her eye on from a previous visit. My mum is absolutely fuming about it. She absolutely does not need anything, but just the principle of her sister being such a fucking vulture...

You actually don't have to polish silver. It's anti-bacterial properties still work if it's tarnished.

My folks have been spinning off their treasures for a couple decades now. They waited until their kids had already established & furnished their own households, so a lot of it ended up in the category of "Yes, I can put this in the trash for you."

Lifespans are at the awkward stage where the kids are too old and the grandkids too young to want any of those household staples.

My basement is already half full of my inlaw's crap.