We’re Note Dead. We’re Downsizing. There’s a Difference.

The millennials have opinions about our stuff. Some of them are even right. But before we discuss any of that — kids, come get your things.

There is a trend amongst the younger generation.

They have decided, with the particular confidence, that we should downsize. Shed the collections. Release the things. Embrace the minimalism. Let it all go. They proudly proclaim “we don’t want your stuff.” Them are fighting words, the kind that can break your Rebel spirit.

They say it cheerfully. They say it boldly. They say it while leaving half their own possessions in our spare rooms with the breezy assurance that they'll be back for them.

They will not be back for them.

But we will get to that.

First, let me be very clear about something: I am not dead. I am not diminished. I am not quietly waiting to be relieved of the things I spent a lifetime collecting. I am alive and thriving and entirely capable of deciding for myself which teapot brings me joy.

And I have many teapots. My teapot obsession is, I am told, legendary.

The First Move: When I Became Someone Who Color-Coded Boxes

At 55, we sold the home in which we had raised our children.

Twenty-one years in that house on the perfect street in a sunny suburb of Southern California. Twenty-one years of birthdays and Christmases and weekly Thursday dinners for friends, and the particular accumulation of a life fully lived in a space that held all of it. It was a source of pure joy for every one of those years. We loved it completely. But our children had grown and moved on — taking themselves, leaving their things, and we were ready to do the same. My husband's mother was in Georgia, where he had grown up, and we wanted to be near her. We found our next home. We committed.

Then his job needed him to stay one more year. We found a rental. And then the packing began. I want to tell you about the packing, because it was — and I say this with complete sincerity — a thing of genuine beauty.

I am, by nature, a planner. I am organized in a way that other people sometimes find alarming and I find simply correct. The color-coding of boxes by room, by destination, by priority — the system I developed for those moving trucks was a small masterpiece of logistical thinking. My husband was impressed. The movers were impressed. I was, quietly, very pleased with myself.

But before the color-coding could begin, there was the purging.

The Purging: A Room By Room Reckoning

I will confess something to you. I was a collector.

The teapots, yes — but that was merely the most celebrated of my collections. As a former event planner, I had accumulated floral and décor supplies on a scale that requires a moment of silence to properly appreciate. We are talking about the kind of inventory that fills a professional space. We are talking about — and I want you to understand this was a real thing in my real garage — a walk-in flower cooler. I shed it all.

I went room by room, drawer by drawer, closet by closet, and I stripped away everything that wasn't necessary for the new life we were building. Some of the teapots were gifted to people I love. Others were donated. I kept my favorites. The floral supplies — all of it — found new homes. The walk-in flower cooler became someone else’s and very likely their greatest joy.

It was cathartic in a way I hadn't anticipated. There is something genuinely liberating about standing in a home you have lived in for years, looking at the things accumulated within it, and deciding deliberately what matters enough to carry forward. Not everything. Not most things. The important things.

The Kid's Stuff: A Chapter Requiring Its Own Section

A significant quantity of what we purged in that first move did not belong to us. It belonged to our grown children.

Our grown, independent, living-their-own-lives children who had moved out and moved on and left, in our home, a substantial archaeology of their former existence. Clothes from phases they have since outgrown. Books! I’m talking full collections from Harry Potter and The Hobbit. The book thing is my fault, but we’ll talk about that later. They left things they were definitely coming back for. They were not coming back for them.

Listen. I love my children completely. I would do anything for them. I did, in fact, do something very significant for them: I managed the disposition of their abandoned possessions with more grace and generosity than the situation required.

And now these same children — these beloved, confident, unburdened children — have the audacity to suggest that I downsize my teapot collection.

We see you kids.

The Second Move: A Study in Efficiency

The bridge year in the rental taught me something valuable: I had more to shed.

We unpacked only what was necessary for twelve months of temporary living, and in doing so discovered that much of what remained in boxes was not, in fact, necessary at all. If you have lived without something for a year and not once thought about it, the item in question has answered its own question.

When we arrived at our permanent new home, we brought what mattered most. We filled it with the things that honored our old life — the pieces that carried memory and meaning, the collections that told the story of who we are and where we've been — and we added new things to honor the life we were building.

And here I must make a confession.

The Southern Antique Stores: A Confession

In the South, the antique and thrift stores are something else entirely.

I want to be clear that I arrived in South Georgia with a philosophy of simplicity and a genuine commitment not to accumulate. I had purged. I had shed. I had carried only the important things.

And then I walked into the antique stores.

The dishes. The teapots. And oh the furniture. The beautiful, improbable things sitting on shelves waiting to be found by someone who would understand their value. Priced at a fraction of what they were worth. Displayed with the casual abundance of a region that has centuries of beautiful things moving through its markets and doesn't always know what it has.

I knew what it had. My collection grew. I regret nothing. Another confession. I now own a 1930’s Victor Victrola. That one is not my fault. It came with the house. I swear on my little Rebel heart.

I will say, in my defense, that my daughter has made her position clear: she loves a lot of my stuff and intends to keep some of it when I have left this beautiful earth. Which means it is not accumulation. It is curation. It is building a legacy. It is, frankly, an act of love.

We are The Ladies of The Pen and Vine Society and we have themed book club parties. Yeah we’re Rebellious like that!

The Books: A Love Story With a Sensible System

I am a woman in a book club. This means I buy books. Many books. More books than any finite shelf can reasonably accommodate.

My daughter and I went through my collection together — all of it, every volume — and donated hundreds. Yes I said hundreds! Only the favorites were kept and catalogued. It was, like the first great purge, surprisingly cathartic. As a result I now have room for decor on my bookshelves along with my most favored books.

I have since discovered Thriftbooks, whose buy-back program allows me to keep my shelves manageable while earning credit toward more books. I buy. I read. I sell back. I buy again. It is a system of perfect, self-sustaining literary joy and I commend it to every book lover who has ever stood in front of an overflowing shelf wondering how it came to this.

It came to this because the books are wonderful. That is how.

What I Actually Think About Downsizing

Here is the honest truth, stripped of all the teapot comedy:

The millennials are not entirely wrong.

Downsizing — real downsizing, the deliberate kind, the room-by-room reckoning kind — is one of the most clarifying things I have ever done. It forced me to look at everything I owned and ask what it was actually worth to me. Not its monetary value. Its value to my life. Its meaning. Its necessity.

What I kept has more meaning now than it did before, because I chose it. Because I looked at it, set against everything else, and said: yes. This one. This comes with me.

The things we surround ourselves with should be chosen, not accumulated by default. They should tell our story, not bury us in it. They should honor who we have been and who we are becoming.

We are not dead. We are not diminished. We are at the most intentional, self-aware, clear-eyed stage of our lives. We know what matters. We know what to keep.

But I do want to say one final thing, directly to my children, with all the love in my heart:

Hey Kids. Come Get Your Stuff.

It has been waiting patiently.

It has been moved — twice — across significant distances at considerable expense.

It has been stored and protected and not once complained about.

You are welcome.

Now come and get it.

Because we are downsizing.

And your stuff is first.

With Rebel Love - Jeannie

💬Are you in the middle of the great downsize? Or still building the collection that will one day horrify your children? Tell me everything in the comments. And if your kids have left their things at your house — how long has it been? I want to know.