#19 Unpacking

In 2004 before I moved to the other side of the world to do a Master's degree I packed up my apartment and delivered the boxes to my parents' basement where they have remained ever since. I have not unpacked those boxes in five years. For a few years I could remember their contents, and could even direct my mum to a specific box if there was something I wanted her to mail me.

However, that recollection has now since passed. I can't for the life of me remember what is in all those darn boxes in the basement, and after having lived without the stuff for so many years I have a hard time believing that I actually need it all. My tastes have also changed (from Nordic influence) and I highly doubt that many of the accessories I once had in my old apartment appeal to me any longer.

In September I started taking an art class and decided one weekend that I wanted to find some of my old art supplies, so into the boxes I started digging. Wow did I have a lot of crap in those boxes! My notes from university classes, training manuals from my first year as a Residence Assistant in 1999, a stack of 3" disks with now-lost-forever essays and who knows what else, trinkets from when I was a teenager which are fun to look at but remain completely useless, out-of-date clothes, dried-out glue sticks...the list goes on.

Why did I think all these things were important enough to keep? *cough* I may be somewhat of a pack-rat. I blame my great aunt Mabel.

If I hadn't packed it all away I think I might have kept some of it forever. But on Sunday I went through 5 of the boxes and have now recycled, garbaged, or set-aside for the second-hand store 2 boxes worth of things. I feel lighter already, and relieved that I won't have to move it, only to then throw it out later.

...now all that remains are the boxes I haven't ever opened since my parents moved ten years ago from the house I grew up in. They boxed up my childhood room, and those boxes now sit in the basement too. My mum kept school work that both my sister and I did all-the-way back to kindergarden. When she and Dad moved she decided that it had become our responsibility to keep that memorabilia and boxed for us. I have never opened those boxes, and dread the day I have to decide whether to keep the turkey I made out of my hand-print in grade 2, or the 1988 Olympics project I did in grade 3.

Oh dear.