Spouse briefs: TV show motivates me not to hoard

As a military wife that frequently has to move, there is one show on TV that terrifies me. In it I see some of my darkest fears manifested in the lives of others. That show is "Hoarders" and it scares me because I come from a family of packrats.

My grandparents grew up during the depression and raised kids during the rationing of World War II. Because of those two factors my grandmother never threw much out. She pretty much lived by the motto "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." At one point as a child I spent the week with her at her country home in East Texas. For dinner we had a can of corn but the two of us didn't finish it. The next day for dinner we had the rest of that corn mixed with green beans. We also didn't finish that and it returned the next day mixed with peas. This continued until I stopped eating vegetables entirely. She didn't just do this with food but everything. Clothing, magazines and furniture hung around much longer then it should have. Don't get me wrong, she had a lot of nice stuff. But that nice stuff was also surrounded by less desirable items.

Her son, my father was career military so he took those tendencies on the road with his family. Our house also had nice stuff like a beautiful antique sideboard from England; which could best be admired from the disgusting $10 garage sale couch that had a chunk of 2X4 in the place of a missing leg. In fact our Frankenstein kitchen table also had a piece of 2X4 in place of one of its feet. There seemed to be a couple rules to the hoarding in my parent's house: number one garages are not for parking cars but storing stuff, number two National Geographic Magazines should never be thrown out. This tendency must be genetic because I too have managed to have enough stuff to fill a garage, including a pile of National Geographics.

I don't plan on filling my house with junkyard furniture or recycled food, but there are many things that I find difficult to part with; children's drawings, holiday cards, books, clothes etc... When it all starts to overwhelm me and most especially right before a PCS, I watch an episode of "Hoarders" and like magic I am ready to chuck it all. I may have regrets down the road when I reflect on that ratty blanket from my childhood that I tossed, but then again I've got all the blankets that my kids are making ratty right now to comfort me.

Rebecca Adling started life as an Air Force brat and is now enjoying life as a mother raising her own pile of adorable Air Force brats