I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I have purged our houses through the years. I can think of eight big clean-outs in the last 10 years. Two of those times we had actual large trash containers at the end of the driveway, and the other times we filled up a junk trailer or two that headed straight to the landfill — full of the stuff that once seemed so important.

But this sweep, I actually feel befuddled. Between our basement and our storage unit we had two landfill runs and two contractor bags full of stuff. When I found myself deciding whether or not to keep my kids’ old Harry Potter books or some sparklers from the Fourth Of July five years ago, I had to grapple with the question of whether or not I am a hoarder.

Am I?

I might just be sentimental. I still have the clay bowls the kids made me in kindergarten, and I can’t part with the great collection of children’s books that framed our child-rearing years. Won’t my girls want them for their children?

Probably not. They smell and feel like the basement now.

But I think I’m in the safe zone from becoming a subject on a hoarding television show because I can and do let things go.

Here’s why this weekend was difficult: If you’ve purged 10 times in 10 years, the stuff that is left is getting down to the soul items — the really personal stuff you failed to let go off six purges ago. Your husband is more likely to get struck by lightening than he is letting go off that 1968 Gibson guitar.

But then there was a ridiculous argument in the driveway over a roll of paper towels. Honest to god, my husband didn’t want to throw away a 10-year-old roll of paper towels we found in a box of cleaning supplies.

“Please don’t tell me you are keeping that roll of paper towels,” I said.

“I’m keeping them,” he said. And he really meant it. He said he was going to put them in his workspace downstairs — a place I’ve never seen him actually working in. Not even once.

The paper towels were dirty and old but I let it go because his parents were depression-era parents and there’s some ingrained habits that die really hard.

Out of spite, he questioned my decision to keep a brand new collapsible water container still in its box.

“We might go camping again one day,” I said.

We both know we’ll never go camping again. And I’m not sure why I want to keep the darn thing, except that it’s new.

“Well, someone we know might want it if they go camping.”

“No one we know is going camping again,” he said. “Ever.”

You know, folks, a lot of this purging is sad. You’re making big statements about your age, about what you’ll never do again, or you’re admitting that the big holidays will never be at your house again. And it’s maddening in a way-that so many of the things you have collected — the bowl for the shrimp dip and the Santa napkin rings are not a part of your life anymore. And yet, they’re part of your memories. Your brain sees the Santa napkin rings and insists Christmas will never be the same without them.

And then you get mad — mad at the kids for growing up and moving away and declaring they don’t want those napkin rings either — as if they were just a small, inconsequential part of their childhood. And you get mad that you will die one day and someone from Goodwill is going to be picking through your dishes and your napkin rings having no idea of the significance attached.

I’ll tell you, I’m tired or purging. I’m ready to do what my mother’s friend did 10 years ago and sell everything I own and buy a Winnebago and spend different seasons in different places. No more grandmother’s dishes, or martini glasses from Corning Glass, or 25 pairs of pants, or old paper towels rolling around in a box. Just you and three outfits and a drawer full of paper plates roaming the country together.

Today, that sounds glorious.

In a perfect world, my daughters would pull up in a storage trailer and cart away my deviled egg dish and the 20 cheap white plates I once bought for a single party. But in the real world, I’ll be unwrapping them from a brown box in about five years and deciding what stage of life they’re in.

Or what stage of life I’m in.

As of tonight, having breathed in mice droppings and dust all day from the storage unit, I can testify that you might just see me one day waving from the passenger window of a Winnebago. I’ll yell to you with a smile on my face that I’m free at last.

And I’m going to hand you that deviled egg dish through the window.