Saturday, June 23, 2012

A Life in Boxes

Sorting and packing has a way of taking you down memory lane. 

Today I spent hours and hours cleaning out my files and shredding years and years of old paperwork. As I was shredding old credit card statements dating back (dare I say it?) into the 1990s...I was able to see glimpses of my life. The places I used to shop back in the 90s in DC; restaurants and shows; the time when I moved with my ex husband into our first house and bought a lot of furniture; the years I spent traveling South Asia for work and shopping like a fiend, making sure I spent every last dime of my per diem and then some on local arts and crafts; the retail therapy I practiced when my first marriage fell apart...ahh yes, the memories - good and bad. 

Then I had to head to the dreaded basement where I have boxes and boxes of stuff I brought here from DC and haven't really dealt with in the two years we've been here. Boxes full of stuff from my childhood and teen years and college years that sat in my parent's attic until I took them two years ago. I  plan to sort some of it a little tomorrow, but there won't be time to do a thorough sort now. For now all of them and most of our things will go into storage while we rent a place and until we finally move into our house at the end of this year.

Then there was the sorting and packing of all of my books. I purged a lot of them when I moved out here. There aren't many more to purge because the ones I've kept are some of my favorites or (I am ashamed to admit) many, many I still haven't read but I do want to some day. Am I kidding myself to think I will read those books? I hope not.

Then there are all the CDs from the days when we still bought CDs. I can't get rid of them yet, because many of them I haven't had the chance to copy onto my computer yet! I don't have space. I've got 72 GB on my computer and can't really add more. Some day soon I hope. I wish I could hire someone to organize all of my music for me.

Much of the art I've collected is still wrapped up from moving last time.

Files, books, music, art, photographs, old letters, memorabilia - things that tell the story of a person and their life. A life of memories in boxes.

2 comments:

  1. I got rid of a giant box of cassette tapes last week, since I have not owned a cassette player in over a decade. It was heartbreaking - like I was killing off my high school self - because I am probably never going to buy myself a Thompson Twins or Ministry cd to replace the music that was on those cassettes...

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  2. Liz I know!!! I felt the same when I got rid of my cassettes - especially mix tapes - all irreplaceable :(

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