Insight: Do we own stuff, or does it own us?

I am sentimental about stuff connected to memories.  A little dress that my girls wore, old winter hats, baby shoes.  I have totes in the attic for each of the girls, filled with special items from their childhood.  I have to remember that letting go of old shoes, etc., that they wore doesn't mean letting go of all those memories.
Growing up, I always felt poor.  We moved so often, that if it didn't fit in the station wagon with us, it didn't have value to my parents.
When I finally stayed in one place long enough to graduate from high school, all my belongings fit in my bedroom.  I moved out when I was eighteen, my mother was angry at me, and threw everything into an appliance box and pushed it down the stairs.  When I left for the Army, everything fit in in a suitcase.  When I was assigned to Fort Bragg, a suitcase and duffel bag held everything.  When I moved into an apartment, everything fit in my car.
When Robert and I first married, we lived in a mobile home, which we took to Pennsylvania after he was commissioned as a Reserve officer and finished training at Fort Sill.  Everything fit in that mobile home (two bedrooms) and our car.
When we moved into a house (an old house that we will be working on forever), with two (and later three) little girls, they had their own bedrooms that filled up with stuff.  Over the years, we have filled up the attic, the basement (which I cleaned out this past year), an enclosed porch that we added to the front of our house (which is now a separate sitting room full of sewing stuff and entry (which holds a display cabinet, antique desk and a closet that my youngest daughter now uses).

Still working on not holding on to so much stuff.  The pictures show the new and improved entry, and the dolls explain alot about why I have so much sewing stuff.  I love sewing dolls.  These two were finished after classes I took three years ago in Ohio at the Dollgatherers Gala.