A huge boulder blocking the way--both physically and and emotionally--is that mountain of my dad's "stuff" crammed into a storage unit over on Country Club Road at Colonial Storage. We've been paying $120. rent on the space for 2 years now, since Betsy and I dismantled Daddy's apartment at Taylor Glen to move him into assisted living, at 91, after his health began to decline.
There was only room enough in assisted living for daddy's bed, his clothes, and a few of his personal items. Therefore, we gave away many of the things to which we had no personal attachment and the rest either went with Betsy to Garner or to me in Winston Salem, ie, the storage unit. We had been through this process 7 years earlier when Daddy dismantled his house in Wake Forest and downsized into an independent living apartment at Taylor Glen.
Daddy died in December, just after his 92nd birthday, and his stuff is just sitting over there haunting me, not to mention costing us almost $1500 a year to maintain in it's current dusty and disorganized state. As frugal as Daddy was, he is no doubt stirring in his grave over my extravagance. It would not be the first time.
I've ventured over there several times to start the process of culling through it all, but have ended up in a panic, throwing up my hands, walking out and locking the door, and refusing to think about all those boxes of:
Bills, cancelled checks
tax returns and forms
medical records
investment reports
loan agreements
insurance forms
passports
birth certificates
marriage and death certificates
military records
awards and plaques
Inventory of household goods
All meticulously organized and packaged and labeled, paper clipped and rubber banded together
And boxes of
Sermons, Lesson notes, theology books, paper and office supplies
A kit for making a mandolin
puzzles
china, silverware, stem ware, bowls, and various and sundry pieces of memorabilia collected over a life time
framed pictures
mirrors
And among the boxes are
lamps and shades
A Gott water cooler
Golf shoes, tennis racket and tennis balls
Daddy's seminary office desk
file cabinet
desk chair
captains chair
roller cart
My mother's secretary desk
embroidered foot stool
step ladder
2 card tables
Grandmother's bedroom suite--bed, mattress, chest of drawers, vanity
Padded bed stead
The list reads like a Shel Silverstein poem (Remember Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who would not take the Garbage out?), which I would much rather take the time to craft it into than deal with the actual items represented there. Alas, our possessions, as guru for clutter management Peter Walsh has written, can leave us feeling like It's All Too Much, and we must get in control of them before they take us over.
Thus, I decided last week, to return to the storage unit, and begin anew. As my panic returned and quickly began to rise along with my blood pressure, and I searched for a reason not to bolt once again, I remembered the old joke: "How do you eat an elephant? Well, one bite at a time, of course." I took a deep breath and decided to follow the advice from the punch line of that joke.
My first "bite" was to take a quick survey of the boxes and attach a yellow sticky note on every box that I was sure could be trashed or shredded in its entirety. It took about an hour to complete the task, and when I was finished, I had identified 13 boxes that fit that criteria.
As I pulled down the metal door and secured the lock to the storage unit, I began planning the next step, which would be to get Bill to help me move all of those boxes out either to the dump or to a shredder. The removal of 13 boxes should free up some space and give us room to operate.
Back in the car, I continued planning, as I entered the security code on the pad to activate the gate, and drove home. The next "bite" I determined would be to identify the pieces of furniture,lamps, and pictures that we or the children want to keep and the things that we want to give away and begin taking them to the Habitat Re-store or another charity.
That should reduce the pile to about 10 boxes of books, notes, and personal treasures that I can probably bring home and store in space acquired from cleaning out and getting my own house in order and under control, which I am currently in the process of doing.
Happily, I am making great progress on my Retirement Project Action plan, which I will share in my next entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment