the Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton

The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton 

Everybody always looks at me askance when I tell them I watch Hoarders on television. Really, I do watch it.  I can't look away.  I started watching when we were planning to move from a large house to another city and a smaller house.  I had to make way too many decisions, purge, pack up and we had a lot of stuff.  Books.  Hoo-boy, do we have books.  Quilt supplies and fabric, a whole wall, a long wall, of dishes, two living rooms, two kitchens, two dining rooms, too many decisions.  I happened on an episode of Hoarders on television, watched it and thought nothing I had to do could top that.  Watching put me in the mood to tackle the purging and packing and periodically, when I felt overwhelmed with the work, I'd sit down and watch another episode. But you can't watch without wondering how someone could end up that way.

Well, in The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton, we get a glimpse of what can push a person in the direction of an unhealthy obsession with things. Amy looks normal from the outside but there is a reason she won't let you in her home.  Once she thought she would become an artist, and she is very good, but like it is with hoarders, something happened to the people in her past, people who were the most important things in her life, and she discovered you can lose people but things won't leave.  

She has a preference for ceramic birds, pots, anything that sparks her artistic eye.  A coffee mug? Sure. More coffee mugs? Why not.  She talks to her ceramic birds, she covets her pots and fixes things that break. She can't let go.  

One day a new family moves in next door and included in that family are two little boys.  There is nothing like a curious little boy to bring you out of yourself.  One day Amy discovers a piece of information about her past important people and she admits, finally, the need to know what happened.  Her sleuthing takes her back layer by layer and when she pulls back into the safety of her seclusion well, enter those little boys again.  One of whom shows hints of obsessions of his own, except his are bulldozers, not birds.  

As with all hoarders, Amy has to make a decision, her things or people?  The little guy next door, some answers about her past losses and some broken mugs and pots help Amy to realize what's important to save and what isn't. And she learns that in letting go she is actually letting in.