Mini-storage

Soon it will be time to pack up. It is easy (somewhat) to get rid of my stuff. There are rules (see death-cleanse, Marie Kondo) such as if you haven’t worn it for 3 years or if you are waiting to fit into an article of clothing just get rid of it. All the kitchen gadgets, “Tupperware” (really just used yoghurt tubs), tiny bars of soap, the one-sock bag=all of this goes. The maybe pile takes more deliberation, yet when the rules are applied, it’s a no-brainer.

But what about Mom’s wedding dress? Mike’s father’s old record collection? Grace’s books, the ones she read as well as the ones she wrote?

Our mini-storage is nine-tenths memories, full of other people’s stuff that we cannot bring ourselves to get rid of.

When my parents died I was not offered anything of worth from their estate. All of that was divided among the other siblings. It is a story of betrayal, yet an old story that is still being written. Instead I took the stuff no one else wanted. Who takes a 75-year old wedding dress just in case? I might have thought Grace would want it when her time came, but she had her own plans/ideas. So it sits in a Rubbermaid container made just for that purpose with tissue paper between the cream satin folds. Mike’s dad came of age in the 50s and bought LPs and 45s of up-and-coming rock bands. Some of these were one-hit wonders. The records have no material value—just nostalgic. And, that’s the problem. How does one simply throw these things out?

They mean something only to one person. Me. And, what will happen when I let go?

I have bins and bins of children’s books, creased paperbacks, the kind one sees libraries discard that used to be my daughter’s. I’m saving them for her, is what I say. But, whenever she has visited in the past, she leaves the mini-storage without them. She’s even told me, Get rid of them! But I can’t. All her old schoolwork/papers/stories. These are treasures—no matter that they are browning, faded, even insect eaten. Some of the objects don’t even look like what they used to be, whatever that was. The glue has evaporated, the glitter dulled, they have turned to dust.

Now with a grandson, I might even rationalize I’m saving them for him. Another lie. No one cares about this stuff. Maybe even I don’t care. It’s not about the wedding dress—it’s that I don’t want this part of my mother’s life to be reduced to rubbish, an aisle at the Salvation Army thrift store. Yet . . .

I cannot move with it or any of the other stuff I’ve saved in the mini-storage. It might be time to say goodbye.

All this to say I will be holding a garage sale in the near future—one full of memories both fond and painful, of love and hurt, all the old things of “no” worth. Oh!—how hard it will be.