I had a conversation last night with my girlfriend about sentimental stuff.
The discussion was not about my stuff or her stuff, but about how her half-sister (and many other people in the world) deal with sentimental stuff. Her half-sister's mom died a few years back. Half-sis was left the house and all the belongings in it. Half-sis could not bring herself to sell the house, so she rented it out. The renters have nearly destroyed it. All the stuff went into a storage unit or was absorbed into half-sis's household. The trashy renters and the storage units and the new clutter in half-sis's home caused a lot of headaches for her, her husband, her kids, etc. Not to mention the financial costs...
The discussion got intense -- not an argument, but emphatic on both my part and my girlfriend's part. I told my girlfriend that I would not hold onto all that stuff if someone close to me died. She said: "I know you wouldn't! You aren't close to people or emotional about people. You can just cut people out of your life like they never mattered. You're a minimalist."
Now this... This right right here is a major pet peeve of mine: The misconception that minimalists don't care about people and/because we don't care much about their "stuff."
Any other minimalists, "right-sizers," or SLers deal with this misconception?