Love and Storage

Over the past few weeks we’ve moved one to college and our two-year-old into that old room (amidst a new sleep training, yawn). It seems overnight the nursery I dreamed of for years is no more. In another room, eighteen years of memories and gear and all a life collects were rummaged, then packed, donated, or given away. The rest of the household has followed suit, and yesterday between the rest of us we cleaned out closets and drawers and anything we could find to cathartically cut from the clutter.

In the process, I found one of my most cherished gifts. Rather, the token of the cherished gift. A few years ago, for our anniversary, my husband gave me a framed photo of what looked like a dusty garage. Staring at it for what felt like an awkwardly long time, given the reaction one hopes to give upon receiving a gift, I finally recognized it was a photo of a storage unit. It looked much like my storage unit, except it was empty.

We’ve lived in our house almost ten years. Before that, I moved living spaces ten times in seven years. I’ve moved offices or warehouses for the business eight times. Many of the moves of those two different aspects of my life overlapped in what felt like a decade of moving mayhem. In the process, I accumulated a few things and housed them for years in an overpriced storage unit. The monthly payment drove me crazy when I did the math in my head. It was so unnecessary. But I just could never bring myself to go clean it out. It wasn’t the physical labor that most kept me away, but the time and emotion required to go through so many years of so many things.

The real gift wasn’t a framed photo. It had been cleaned out for me. And not haphazardly, assuming most was trash. Rather, with great care and a hired helper, my husband threw out what he knew could go and in a few small boxes packed what he knew I would want or wasn’t sure enough to make the call on. (Including photos of old boyfriends, which I found endearing but assured him those could also go.)

It was one of the most amazing gifts I’ve ever been given. As if a thousand pounds had been lifted off my shoulders. Over the last week I’ve realized that whether as large as a storage unit or as small as an old box, most of us could use a little help “cleaning things out” sometimes. Before he went to college, our oldest had his girlfriend help him go through every nook and memory and cranny. I remember my grandmother taking my mom and aunt through every single item in her home to tell them where it came from and who she wanted it to go to.

The things we need others for are usually pretty obvious and somewhat universal. Rummaging through seeming junk may not be so obvious. But there’s something to it. You or someone might need a little help getting through it, literally and figuratively.

What a gift…