I’m in the process of helping my parents move for the second time in a year. This involves not only packing the contents of their fully stocked home, but also a new attempt to cull the two (recently down from three) large storage units on the outskirts of town they’ve been renting for the last several years.Just yesterday I celebrated my forty-first birthday (during a little break in the winnowing process) in the halls of the storage unit along with my sister and parents. We used the dolly for a picnic table and ate key lime pie in the metal corridors as the lights turned on and off leaving us in the dark amid the excess photos, furniture, books and dust of four generations of my family not to mention the stuff belonging to all of the other folks in the community who rent a box along these same corridors for the items they either don’t want or need in their homes.
It’s hard to let things go: my grandfather’s well-brushed top hat packed carefully in its handsome leather case, crystal ashtrays from the era when nearly everyone smoked, my parent’s college year books, trophies from golf and basketball tournaments, art projects from preschool and elementary school and high school, wedding presents – silver trays and porcelain bowls – still in their plastic wrap, unopened and unused for forty plus years.
But at some point, one must let stuff go. The hassle, the expense, and the inevitable deterioration of the items themselves is enough to give one pause.
Of course, this verse kept running through our minds:
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” – Matthew 6:20
As did these statistics:
– – Of the 58,000 self storage facilities worldwide in 2009, 46,000 were located in the United States.
– – There is more than 2.35 billion square feet of self storage in the U.S., or a land area equivalent to three times Manhattan Island under roof.
– – One in ten U.S. households now rent a self storage unit.
My sister kept saying as we put stuff in the “throw away” pile: “Take a picture and store it in your heart.” And I liked that idea. We can’t keep it all. We can’t take it with us. But we can take a picture and store it in our heart, and we can keep actual photos which don’t take up much room at all if you take them out of their frames and put them in large envelopes so that’s just what I did.
Here are a few that made me giggle, or get teary, crack up altogether or just say “Awwwww.”
My paternal grandparents who I grew up visiting every summer: (How I loved them!)
My parents as newlyweds on the beach where I grew up:
Me at age two with my parents at my aunt’s wedding:
Me at age 3 forcing my cousin, Chris, to kiss me: (I was madly in love with him for years!)
My mom and my sisters:
Sisters again at the baby sister’s wedding:
Question of the day: Are you a pack rat or are you good at getting rid of your excess stuff? Any tips you can share?
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