Possession atrophy is that point in time when your belongings have been with someone else enough for her to claim that possession.
When we had our first child, all the bedrooms upstairs were not finished from the complete gutting they endured. One room didn’t have heat, a couple didn’t have wood trim around the windows. One may not have even had a door. So we moved rooms around as we needed. What was #1′s bedroom, became ours. Hers became her little brother’s. I didn’t think about which one was mine versus hers or his. They were just rooms. I placed furniture in the rooms to help with the whole feeding & clothing aspect of babies. My rocking chair. My night stand. I viewed these as still mine, just momentarily in the baby’s room.
The rocking chair atrophy surprised me because what would a child want with a rocking chair (in his room) or a recliner (in hers). “But it’s always been in my room!” Time to chair atrophy: 5 years.
Room atrophy is best illustrated by a temper tantrum that ends with “Get out of my room!” Then, while I’m downstairs wondering if I should go up and check on the kids, I hear the door slam. I won’t be able to move rooms around anymore. Time to room atrophy: 3 years.
Then there is the boom box. She has three other music-playing boxes, all in various states of working order. But I caved one day, and lent her my boom box. It plays CDs, tapes, the radio and has a jack for earphones — probably ten years old. This was supposed to be an overnight visit of the boom box while I bought her another one. No deal. It sat on her shelf overnight. I could protest or bribe her if I wanted the boom box back. But I had two warnings about possession atrophy already and the thing is ten years old. Time to boom box atrophy: 12 hours.