The hidden link between our stuff and our sanity

On the possessions that anchor us

I can still remember the first trinket I bought for myself. It was a little dish I got from a shop on holiday, shiny and inexpensive, and it held the few pieces of jewellery I owned at 15.

Cherishing the things we own starts from a young age. At first it’s Beanie Babies, Betty Spaghetty dolls and gummy bangles - if you’re a 90s child. It’s why childhood bedrooms are usually covered in stuff. Walls and doors adorned with certificates, stickers and artwork, half-finished crafts, marbles, an over-filled pencil case, semi-precious stones and key-rings strewn across the surfaces. These are the objects that document the details of their lives. The treasures of our childhood tucked away in our bedrooms for safe-keeping.

Valuing things more, simply because they belong to us, starts as young as six-years-old psychologists say. They call it the ‘endowment effect.’ And that one item you were particularly attached to that seemed more special than most - a blanket or a soft toy - they refer to as a ‘transitional object.’ So-called because it’s believed these special objects help children in the transition to independence. I certainly have memories of my stringy, knitted rabbit called Frosty coming with me on my first day of school.

So, then, when we are fully independent, the things that we collect become more practical: crockery, ornaments, books and art in colours and styles and shapes that we like. Thought goes into organising and housing them and we proudly display them on shelves and bookcases. The treasures of our lives can no longer be contained in our bedrooms.

Allowing your stuff to spill into more room than one is a luxury these days with 28% more single adults living in multi-adult households today than twenty years ago. Those in houseshares who rent a room and a share of the communal space, contain their treasures in their bedrooms for years beyond their childhood.

In a houseshare, you get one room to do what you will. Yes, you can rearrange the third-hand furniture that you didn’t choose, apply Feng Shui if you like or get an IKEA rug to conceal the brown carpet. Just remember to choose your bedding wisely because it will form the closest thing you’re getting to a colour scheme. Oh, and pick fixtures and furnishings that won’t leave a mark and cost you your deposit.

When you can’t do anything to significantly change the space, your possessions are even more precious.

I lived in six houseshares during my twenties, each room and set up entirely different. Some I stayed in for six months, some, for three years. The only consistent characteristic between the rooms I rented was the stuff and things inside them. I relied on my possessions to make a space feel more permanent, more mine.

I wasn’t the only one who held my possessions dear, housemates I shared with did the same. One had a big pink Le Creuset casserole pot that we all knew not to touch without permission. Another had a Kitchen Aid she kept in her room which was reserved for supervised cake-baking only.

Everyone had their thing and they wanted it kept nice - it was our way of feeling like an adult in a sometimes infantilising situation.

I’d been living in houseshares for a few years when I started replacing third-hand furniture I’d inherited from housemates before me with furniture that I loved and I knew I would take with me. With each piece I added to my humble collection, I felt like I was progressing. Wherever I went, this piece of furniture would come with me. Finally something permanent in a world that was otherwise very temporary.

Without a permanent abode, I filled my world with treasures that provided me with some sense of stability, a set up that would last no matter which four walls I was in.

Yesterday, I took one of those treasures to the tip - a pine table I’d bought off eBay for £50. I up-cycled it during three days’ annual leave, sanding the top with a sanding mouse that I borrowed from my sister. I did all the table renovations while my housemates at work so they weren’t bothered by the copious amounts of dust. Then, I painted the legs using tester pots of bright green paint that I liked.

When I moved out of that houseshare to live with my partner, that table came with me. The paint scratched off a little in transit and when it didn’t fit through the door of our new narrow-doored flat, we cut it in half and put it back together again. It saw another house move last year and came with us to the flat we live in now.

I was feeling sentimental as we were carrying it to the car - six years since it came to be mine. For many years it had been the only thing that felt permanent in a life where my housemates, house, job and friendships were ever-changing.

That table had held an important space for me, it was somewhere that, when I invited friends over for dinner, we could sit and eat like an adults. An attractive alternative to eating on my lap as so many housesharers do out of necessity.

When my niece and nephew came to stay overnight with me for the first time, I felt like a functioning young woman when they sat at that table waiting for me to serve them breakfast.

It’s where my boyfriend and I played board games on one of our first dates together and it’s where, a year later (after fixing the table back together) we ate dinner on the first night in our new home.

So now, if friends ever describe feeling stuck in a houseshare, which so many do, I gently suggest that they start investing in more objects that they love. To surround themselves with stuff and things they will want around for the foreseeable. Because doing so gave me a much needed sign of progress in a living situation that left me feeling stuck.

So while ‘transitional objects’ are only really spoken about in child psychology, I’m not ashamed to admit that having familiar things around me still has a profoundly positive effect on me as an adult. The steadiness I look for is different, of course, but that table was absolutely my ‘transitional object.’ It saw me through some unsettling times in my housesharing years until I gained a new kind of independence.

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