Hi. Thanks for the responses. I've had some time to think about this. Most of the stuff I'm having the problem getting rid of are the books. I have about 1,000 of them, mostly unread. I just can't seem to get rid of them, thinking that someday I might take the time to sit down and read them, but after thinking about this today I know I won't read them.

I used to be an avid reader until I hit my early 30's(I'm 42, btw). Then my interest started waning. I used to revere books, thinking they were an important part of my life. Yet I continue to buy books, like it's habitual. I see a book that might have interested me in the past so I buy it, then it sits on a shelf.

Some of the porcelain I can get rid of. It may have had value to me, but to others, probably not. Not too many people care about an old thing anymore. Maybe that's the way I'm becoming? Not worrying too much about what used to be. Trying to look forward. I enjoy the old things that I can use--dinnerware from the Gilded Age, vases, knick-knacks, etc. Some of the items are dust-collectors and I'm getting tired of that kind of stuff--having to take care of them but not being able to get any use out of them.

...The reason I put in bold that last sentence is it made me stop after I typed it. That was the problem I had with my mother and sister--it was a one-way street with them--always has been. I finally got tired, really--physically and mentally, of having to put so much into maintaining a relationship with them and getting nothing in return. So I finally let them go. Very abruptly, without any dialog about it either. I just stopped contact. They tried to contact me, but I just ignored them. I don't feel like I regret it, either. I hope I'm not a bad person for feeling that way. But I can't spend my life dealing with people, related or not, where I feel like they don't have an iota of concern for me.

Maybe part of me feels a little guilt about cutting ties with them. Maybe buying all this stuff since I cut ties was a way to try to hold onto the past with them. Now getting rid of these things I've accumulated could be the final round of letting go of mom and sis.

Part of me wants to swirl around my apartment like a tornado, singing "I Feel Free", throwing stuff in bags and boxes and carting it off to the dumpster--might that be me wanting to rid my life of the wasted effort I put into mom and sis? I think so. God, I hope I haven't gone crazy.