Where did all this STUFF come from?
We have moved multiple times in the past decade, and each time we purge, sort, donate, recycle, re-gift and toss what seems like hundreds of items, including clothing, knick-knacks, housewares and miscellaneous. We’ve had rummage sales, given away things for free on the “Buy Nothing” Facebook groups, and even called a junk removal service. Yet here we are, once again trying to downsize even further and eliminate the monthly expense of a self-storage unit.
We had an adult child move out, then move back in a few years later, then move out again. When the “kids” depart, they leave quite a bit behind. I did it myself and clearly remember my dad calling me in my late 30s to say he was selling his house and asking if I minded coming by and getting my stuff. My room and my brother’s room still looked pretty much the same as they had the last time we lived there.
The boxes our son left were things he felt weren’t important enough to take and clutter up his new space, but also things he hoped we would hang onto indefinitely, you know, just in case he ever needed them. The boxes were in the spare room at first, then moved to the garage, then eventually to the storage facility (once it was clear there were no imminent plans to return for them!).
We hadn’t visited the unit in nearly a year, which made it clear that nothing crucial was locked inside those secure roll-up doors. We cringed when we calculated how much we had invested for the last three years of renting this space to accommodate things that we just had no space for at home. Each month when we saw that autopayment hit the checking account, we would say, “We should really go clear that out this weekend.” But alas, something would come up that sounded like loads more fun than tackling the task at hand.
Census Bureau data reports that self-storage revenue in the U.S. in 2024 was over $19 billion. That’s a lot of “stuff” that at some point, somebody will have to deal with. If you don’t do it yourself, then eventually, if you’ve kept your payments up, you might not be physically able, or even be around to do it, and your kids will be left to agonize over who gets what and what is worth saving and what ends up at the thrift shop or landfill. Or you stop paying and ignore the notices, and someone on “Storage Wars” ends up bidding on the entire unit’s contents, hoping to find valuable items inside. I have watched only a few episodes and witnessed lots of disappointment, mixed in with a few paintings or a box of jewelry that makes it all worthwhile. I suppose they must be making a profit, or they probably wouldn’t keep doing it!
We had to put it on the calendar to commit ourselves to the daunting project. So, there we were, opening collapsing cardboard boxes and sturdy plastic bins, mostly unmarked, so we weren’t sure what treasures were stashed inside.
My friends and family know I love decorating for Christmas. Over the years, I have collected enough snowmen, Santas and silly singing stuffed toys to fill multiple homes. Since we were out of town for the holidays last year and no youngsters would be visiting leading up to the big day, the décor was scaled down, but festive enough to make me feel I’d not just skipped it altogether. Only my favorite and precious items were on display, including a tree, a couple of boxes of ornaments, some snow globes, and my giant “countdown to Christmas” lighted display that I had kept in the house.
Many of the unmarked boxes in the storage unit were indeed holiday decorations. I parted with a lot in hopes that another family would enjoy them as we had for so many years, and consolidated others into fewer boxes, which felt like a real win! There were, of course, boxes of mementos, including photos, old magazines and newspaper articles we’d held onto, letters, kids’ schoolwork and report cards. Fun to look at and laugh at, but also a rabbit hole that is hard to escape once you start interacting with your spouse and saying, “Oh, look at this!”
And so it went, and we were able to clear it out within a couple of hours. We took a large donation of clothes, books, household items and some small pieces of furniture to a donation station, packed up a few boxes of photos, shipped them to the kids, and made room in our garage for the things we still aren’t ready to part with. We swept out that little square storage unit and high-fived each other as we closed that roll-up door for the last time.
Maybe next year, we will tackle the garage!
Columnist Dana Matthews may be reached at ar***@*****st.net.
