The Storage Room

So, what do 27 year old Aerospace Engineering textbooks and a dozen or more unfinished cross stitch projects have in common you might ask. Well, today they were exhumed from our storage room. Those books have been dragged around in a box to every house we've lived in for the past 27 years. That's two apartments, a rental house, our first purchased home, plus four more! And, I had a box of random cross stitch projects that I had started at one time and never had the motivation to finish. They were tossed into a box with assorted half used ribbon spools, a bunch of antique spools of thread, needles, some remnants from one of our now grown boys' Pokemon games and just well, junk. 


After putting a good one and a half hours into the cleaning process, we were just chillin' in the family room and my hubby asked me, "Why do we hang on so tightly to all this stuff that just doesn't mean anything?" I couldn't think of one good reason except for the fact that we somehow attach an emotion to each thing that we own. Then, when we decide that we no longer want or need that item, the emotion attached to the thing (like the original Star Trek posters my husband had hanging in his room growing up) keeps us hanging on for just a little bit longer.


See, being new empty nesters as of last fall, we're wanting to move half way across the country to start something new. New job (hopefully, and yes needed) for my husband, and grad school for me (yes at 48!). I am applying for next fall, er I mean this coming fall (yikes!) 2012, and my husband is currently scanning job websites to hopefully find that job that's gonna make up the 1.5 times higher living costs on the west coast. And, yes, this does mean a very small living space is going to be waiting for us there. Good thing we still like each other!


Somehow, we're gonna have to get past that emotion that we have attached to a lot of "stuff" in our house that is, well, just stuff. We know that in our heads. Will we have the guts to do the down sizing that is needed for a move of this magnitude? Will we remember as we are taking stuff to the curb, Goodwill, or posting on Craigs List that it is just stuff and can be replaced if we decide later that we can't live without it? 


My wheels are turning. I'm wondering what item  it will be that is the most difficult to let go of to lighten my load. The Good Lord knows it needs lightening in so many ways.