OT - cleaning out my storage unit

This is gonna be long and rambling.  You have been warned.

When I visit my sister next week, we are going to have a yard sale.  I have this storage unit full of stuff from when I had my own apartment.  I have lived with my partner for eight years.  For eight years, I have paid $40 a month to store this stuff.  A friend recently did the math for me and pointed out how much I've spend over the last eight years to store this stuff, and it's truly more money than I can afford just to store stuff I'll likely never use again.

When I first moved in with my partner, I thought I was storing the stuff just in case things didn't work out.  You know, if I moved out six months later, I didn't want to have buy everything for my own place again.  Now that we've been together eight years and things are great, I'm thinking I don't need that stuff as a safety net any longer.

But the truth is, it's more than that.  Yesterday I went to my storage unit, which I almost never go to, and started going through stuff and pulling out stuff to sell at a yard sale.  And I started crying.

I used to have this great apartment.  It was downtown, in what was generally considered a very bad neighborhood.  People said I was nuts to move there.  But I loved it.  The building was more than 100 years old, but had been renovated.  It still had beautiful wooden floors, fireplaces in every room, high ceilings, it was wonderful.  I loved buying things for it.  Picking out the dishes, the bathroom towels.  The bathroom had this big window and of course I needed a curtain for it, and I bought the perfect fabric and sewed a curtain by hand.  I loved that curtain.

And that apartment, and those things, represent a time in my life that is so far gone now.  I feel like it's a different life altogether.  I was a different person.  My depression was under control.  I had a job, a great job that I loved and that I was good at.  So I look at those things, things I haven't touched in eight years and clearly don't need anymore, and think about who I used to be and how things have changed and wonder how I got here.

The depression got worse, I had to go on disability, I could no longer afford my rent.  The day I moved out of that apartment, I sat on the steps of the building next door and cried and cried while the movers carried my stuff out to the truck.  They probably thought I was nuts.

My life isn't bad now.  There are actually good things about it.  But I used to be somebody else.

Hugs.

Maybe find some of your most special pieces and integrate them into the house you share with your partner?

I hope you make lots of money on your sale.

It is kind of funny that you post this.  I was at my sister's getting my hair done and she used some Aveda spray on my hair and the smell took me back to my single days.  Before marraige, kids and it was depressing.  Got me thinking too about how I got where I am today.  Lots of changes.  Some good, some bad.

I agree with working some of your old pieces into your 'new' home. 


Sarah

I am at an age 57 and disabled ( right now) with double torn meniscus in knees and detached ligaments in my hip. I used to be the person everyone called for help , remodel a house?...sure I can do that .... and now , I have to have my adult daughters help me and my husband and I stay home all the time...I too wonder how I got here  :( I want my old life back), I am hoping by having RNY that I will not have to have knee replacement but know regardless of my weight I will at some point have to have hip replacement.
While my life has not changed as drastically as yours , please know that you are not alone.
I really value all of your post and respect your opinion.
I am sorry you are going through this right now , sometimes it is just hard
Hope you and your sis can get this done and you can be on your way to saving money.
Warmest regards

Big Hugs to you - I understand that is so very hard. I hope you can get through this yard sale and know the memories will always be in your head and not in your stuff.

I am wishing you lots of luck during this process, but you will get through it.
Thinking of you.

I love your story, Kelly. It's poignant and I can see you so clearly in it...

Your things carry part of your life that was good, a part that has moved into your memory. Especially since they were part of a home that was an extension of your heart, some echo of you remains in them.

I am not good at moving forward. I don't like letting go of stuff. I've saved:

my favorite dress from when I was in my late twenties: a little rayon print vintage frock I wore all the time when I was skinny, young, and in love.

the Chinese silk shirt embroidered with dragons that my boyfriend appropriated even though it was too tight on him.

a 1940s blouse printed with Caribbean conga drum players; a box of silk scarves and old silk shirts I used to wear with jeans or green fatigues...

It's only a couple of boxes, so I'm still holding on to it--that and my kids' mementos and baby things, our old dolls and favorite toys, etc. I don't care what the TV declutterers say, some things are precious and if you have room, you should not feel bad about keeping them.

I won't be 29 again, or have that body or energy again, or be that foolishly in love again. But I have the dress to prove I was that girl, once. When I'm gone, nobody will care about those things and they'll move on, as I will have. That's OK. Maybe the Chinese shirt will meet me in the tunnel of light. Maybe that adorable man will be in it. Why not?

I understand why you were nostalgic about going through those items, Kelly. One of the reasons I don't keep things is that i dont have the courage to look back like you did. I'm afraid of how disappointed I might be in how things turned out.

But here's the thing - you used to be somebody else. So did I. So did everyone on this site.  And while the items you described may represent a happier time or a time when you felt you had things more together, I bet you have made so many other changes that are great and you are a better person for them! I know you suffer pretty bad from depression and I'm so sorry about that.. But you are a great person and you have so much going for you and you have much to be proud of.  You can't help that your depression got worse and having depression does not make you any less of a person that a person who is not depressed. You are equally valuable, loveable, and whole.

You have a great partner and I have a feeling you have every reason for hope. I think someday you willo be able to pick out new things together and decorate with. But maybe for noyw, can you try to be optimistic and see that getting rid of these items represents baggage you are moving on from, recognizing that your future holds many new chances and opportunieties?

And if it's too painful to sell these items at the sale, can your sister or someone else store them for you for free for a while until you have the room for them again?

My heart goes out to you. Hugs!

Oh Kelly, I'm so sorry you are feeling bad. I KNOW exactly how you feel--our community is having a township wide sale in June. I am going to be 67 years old on the day the sale starts--I have lived in this house for 60 of those years. We've decided to clean out the attic and take part in the sale. I'm finding things from when my parents lived here !! Some things I have no idea why they are still here but I'm seeing that they get back to my brothers and sisters ( report cards from when we were in grade school, pictures from grade and high school,ect). I'm also going through boxes of baby clothes from my kids, knick knacks from when we were first married (45 years ago),a box of dog leashes and tags from animals we've had through those 45 years, all kinds of things I forgot we had or even why I'm keeping them. They all represent how much my life has changed especially since I found a notebook from when I just graduated high school--all the things I was going to do--and didn't. I was so full of dreams and plans--whatever happened to that girl that made all those plans? She disappeared into an over weight, gray haired, wrinkled old lady with a multitude of aches and pains and who seems to have lost the ability to dream.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to high-jack your post with my own trip down memory lane--once I started reading about you--all my feelings came to the surface. I do appreciate the chance to verbalize what I've been feeling.

I do hope you start to feel better, I for one, appreciate the life you share with us here. Hugs to you.

 Kelly, I'm so sorry you're going thru that! Remember that different doesn't mean worse, it's just different. You can find the value in your life today, and be proud of who you were back then.

I have a box of my former partner's stuff that I collected after he died and put in the closet. I had not touched it (literally) since then until December of 2010 when I had all the carpet in the house replaced and had to move everything in the house that touched the floor.  I used that opportunity to get rid of some unused things, so I opened the box.  It was a similar experience to what you described.  It was a very vivid reminder of a life that I loved (and still miss) and the contrast between that life and the one I have now (which is not bad... just not what I had hoped for) was painful.

I know that a lot of people look back on their past and are sad for various reasons, so you are not alone, but I know that probably doesn't make you feel any better.  Parting with things that represent something larger is often difficult, but the most difficult part is usually making the decision to do it...

Lora