My Journey Through Storage
So I neatly packed away all of those memories and the items I thought I would need once I came off the road, whenever that would be. I put them into storage with the intention of buying a house in Fort Collins, Colo., after my travels where I would need sofas, tv stands, and the sheets I kept. I thought I had downsized a lot but looking back I realized I didn't. A lot also happened in those 15 months on the road:
By 2017, Richard, whom I met on the road, and I were living together in that one-bedroom apartment. We now had his things in Colorado too. We wanted to figure out where we wanted to settle down (Fort Collins wasn't an option for him) so we kept the storage unit.
But I still had all of that stuff to deal with, and when we moved out of the apartment to live in the RV so we could save up some money for the down payment, we needed more space. Yup, we got a second storage unit. In November 2018, I bought a one-bedroom condo—no garage, only one closet and less square footage than any home I had previously owned—in Estes Park, Colo. It is a wonderful town to live in with Rocky Mountain National Park and herds of elk right at our doorstep. Those items included plastic cups from spring breaks and frat parties collected during my college years. I found a lot of toys from my childhood: the only Barbie doll I kept, plastic horse figures, a Rubix cube, a Slinky, an Einstein electronic memory game. And then there were the family heirlooms: an antique secretary, a steamer trunk, a spinning wheel that was missing a leg, my Uncle's leather jacket (the same one he died in a few years before I was born), and my Dad's collection of military items. And Aeric's things: his yearbooks, artwork from when he was a child, his collection of Simpsons figures and games, and the scooter helmet I bought him for his last Christmas. And an unbelievable abundance of boxes and bins full of ideas for articles, places to photograph, and media outlets for submitting my photography.
So for the last three months I have been spending several days every week going through every single box, looking at every single paper, and reminiscing about lots of great memories. And I came to the conclusion that I will always have those memories, at least as long as my brain is willing to store them. There really is no need to pay rent to keep items that were boxed up in 2012 and have not seen the light of day since then. Aeric and I didn't have children so there is no one for passing down our memories. But the memories continue to be there. Lots of great memories with my Dad and Aeric. Lots of places we explored. New places I experienced. Wonderful memories from holidays.
So if you are in a similar situation with storage units, remember that the money really can be put to much better use. If you are contemplating putting items in storage because of downsizing, traveling full time in an RV or because you lost a loved one and want to keep their possessions, think twice. More than likely you will find you don't need the items and will have the difficult task of finding a way to dispose of, sell or distribute the items later down the road. I gave away my china; no one wants china dishes anymore because we no longer entertain like we used to. I sold a couple of antique items for probably way less than they were worth. And I held a yard sale in a family member's yard because I am now in a condo with no yard. It wasn't easy and a lot of it could have been prevented by not hanging onto the past. The past makes us who we are but we don't need the things to have the memories.
This is not meant to be a whiny post about how tough life is. I feel very relieved to be free of some of these things. And although I was exhausted at the end of each day after going through all of the memories, it felt comforting to know I had people in my life with whom I created wonderful memories. I hope my journey through storage, can help others in the future as they contemplate what they should keep, what they should buy, and how they should handle keeping the memories alive of lost loved ones while moving forward on the path of making new memories with the living. Now for the next big project: to finish the book about the RV adventure.
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