My daughter has just bought a motorbike, and we were trying to make room for it in the garage. The job was a bit like one of those tile games where, to make a picture, you have to move one tile at a time, juggling them all around, because you only have one space to work with.

We moved stuff into my old studio, already full of things that came out of my late parents-in-law’s home – things we really should have got rid of when we cleared the house. It’s also full of paperwork which we can surely dispose of now that the probate has come through – or at least, we can put it all up in the loft – that is, if we can make room in the loft. Trying to fit into this room things which had come out of the garage was challenging.

One of the things I moved to the side and piled into a corner was my beautiful surround sound system for my computer. In the days when I used to use my computer a lot, I would play music and listen to it pour from my five speakers and bass unit, being able to adjust the sound to theatre sound, amphitheatre, jazz club, and so on.

Now I use my computer only to write this blog and for the occasional thing I can’t do on my phone. It’s no longer in my own room but in a shared office which the whole family uses, including my husband and daughter when they are working from home.

I’ve got to ask myself, will I ever use that lovely system again, or is it time to let it go? Is it time to let my ergonomic chair go? What about the stacked stereo system with the huge Mission speakers that takes up a lot of space in the living room? Is it time to say goodbye? It will break my heart to let it go, and I still need something to play my vinyl collection on, but nobody needs a bulky stack system these days.

Life has moved on. Already I can see, in the next fifteen years or so, we are going to want to downsize. We’re never going to use these things again. There are dinner services and cocktail glasses in the loft we realistically won’t use again. Gone are the days of my elaborate dinner parties. We may still have people round for dinner, but I don’t think I’ll be making them black tie events.

Maybe it’s time to accept that the past is the past and to let things go. It’s a wrench, because I enjoyed those things and feel sorry I won’t be able to use them again. It’s not just letting go of a physical item but letting go of a part of me I’ll never get back.

So, I’m not ready, quite yet, to put my surround sound system on eBay, but I’ve started the mental process of getting there.

Mary

A Moodscope member