THE PENNY PUB

Is It Okay to Purge Gifts from Loved Ones?

I held onto an old blanket for two decades. It’s time to let go.

It’s almost a New Year. Out with the old, in with the new, right?

Which means it was time for a good closet cleanout. Somehow the top shelf of our linen closet had managed to become overflowing with blankets, comforters, and pillows accumulated over way too many years and way too few purges.

I was recovering from Covid and my husband decided, in an effort to de-germ our apartment, that he was going to clean every single linen we owned, including linens that hadn’t been touched in years.

This was a good idea since he and I both have a habit of shoving things on a shelf somewhere when we don’t know where to put them. We think at the time, “I’ll just put this here for now” until that “here” spot is maxed out on space.

I love a good purge myself, but I tend to attach myself sentimentally to otherwise useless items. This makes it difficult for me to declutter at times.

Those cards we received at our wedding just accumulating dust? We must keep them! Those are mementos from our wedding!

That tchocke that I keep knocking off the TV console? That was a gift someone got me on their trip to Hawaii 13 years ago! It would be rude of me to throw it away.

That T-shirt that I got at that concert in high school that sits in the bottom of my drawer? I can’t get rid of that! It was my first concert ever.

Needless to say, I have a lot of clutter in my apartment that is serving no purpose.

As my husband pulled all the linens from the shelf, I could see many were so worn they needed to go to the trash. There was one especially worn blanket, however, that I couldn’t let go of. No, this was not my “blankie.” In fact, I didn’t even own this blanket until I was in my 20s. So why did I need to keep this security blanket, especially when I haven’t used it in years?

This blanket used to belong to my grandmother, Aah (yes, that was her name, to me anyway). I was very close to Aah and when she passed away around 20 years ago, my mom sent me some of Aah’s belongings. One of those belongings was this old blanket.

It was a lavender wool blanket with silky edges that I loved to feel on my fingers when I went to sleep. At the time I inherited the blanket, I was living in Brooklyn and it made sense to have a giant wool blanket on my bed.

Today I live in Los Angeles. We don’t use wool blankets here. It rarely even dips below 50 degrees. Yet I felt the need to hold onto this blanket. Not because I had any use for it. But because it was Aah’s.

And so Aah’s old wool blanket got shoved on that shelf in our linen closet unused.

By the time my husband pulled the blanket from our linen closet this week, it had so many holes in it, probably from all those cold nights I used it in Brooklyn, and possibly moths. Its silky edges I used to rub between my fingers had become faded and stained. If there was zero sentimental attachment to the blanket I would’ve told him to toss it.

But I couldn’t. It was Aah’s blanket.

Until I could. Surprisingly, I did the thing I’d been avoiding for years.

I threw it away.

Yes, it was Aah’s blanket. And yes, I was emotionally attached to it. But like we did as children with our security blankets, I needed to cut the cord from the ratty old blanket.

My memories of Aah are not attached to a blanket. I have 20-plus years of memories with her, and those won’t go anywhere. And the blanket won’t take any of those memories away.

Now there is lots of space on our shelf. This is my favorite part of a purge — getting rid of the clutter and seeing extra space in my closet.

Space for new linens and new memories. Isn’t that what “out with the old in with the new” is all about?