When planning for this new full time RVing adventure, we decided to sell everything instead of store it. (Almost everything)
This wasn’t an easy decision but this was part of the thought process:
- We don’t know how long we’ll do this and storage is expensive.
- I don’t really like anything we currently own.
So we’ve been clearing out the majority of our earthly belongings. We’ve sold a lot of our stuff but ever since Covid-19 shut down the world and all opportunities for a garage sale, our garage has mounds of random things like candle holders, Christmas decorations, nerf guns and books I’ve never read. I try avoid going out there. It’s overwhelming.
It has been interesting, going through everything we own. I tackle each room with 3 boxes. A box to donate, a box to store, a box to throw away. Anything left after this sorting is going in the 5th wheel. If it doesn’t fit in the microscopic storage space assigned to it, it will be tossed.
This is often easy. Especially in a 2 year-old’s room. I have no problem tossing the random toy pieces accumulated on his floor or the shredded remnants of board books that have been in our possession for 15 years. Additionally, I have little difficulty paring down Grady’s wardrobe. I have very little sentimental attachment to boy clothes. They serve one purpose: to get filthy.
This gets harder when I tackle my things. What do I keep, what do I toss?
Fortunately, my gracious parents offered storage in their basement for some boxes and random things we’d like to keep. We are trying to keep this as minimal as possible but it’s hard when I come across another box of pictures from college days or letters my teenage brother wrote me when I was in India.
Talk about priceless and hilarious reading. He was usually complaining about being grounded by our parents or explaining his favorite food in great detail. We bonded over these memories as I sent him pictures of what I found. I was dying laughing at his teenage perspective on the world. These things are definitely worth saving. Forever.
Other things, not so much. Clothes I don’t wear, games we don’t play, blankets we never use.
I’m keeping things like pictures and the baby outfit my kids came home from the hospital in. We have our china and favorite books. I’ve stored a little bit of homeschool materials that I will still need and don’t want to have to repurchase. I have things that were precious to Mason that I will always keep.
But we are getting rid of most of our furniture. Most of our possessions that can be replaced easily.
I don’t need 5 pairs of sandals. I do need the precious pictures my kids drew for me during those sweet, innocent years of crafts piled on the kitchen table. And the seashells we’ve collected on beach trips. And the plane ticket from our honeymoon.
Honestly, these times are not easy on the sentimental.
I even noticed a few tears in Anthony’s eyes the day he sold the kayak. It’s not the kayak he’ll miss as much as the moments we had with it. All the beach days and quiet mornings in the harbor.
And the day he told us someone was coming to pick up our trampoline we all went out and jumped on it together as a family. I’m truly sad to see the trampoline go. I think it was used on a daily basis around here. I have heard lots of laughter coming from that thing.
(Lots of fights and arguing too, but my sentimental heart will discard those memories and just file away the happy ones.)
Memories are beautiful things. Worth embracing and cherishing. Worth the tears and the laughter.
Many of my memories have tinges of sadness. Great streaks of darkness. I have a large box of the cards sent to me after Mason died. At his memorial service many people took a note with a date on it to send us a card sometime throughout the following year. And every week in those dark months after losing Mason, I found notes in my mailbox. Gift cards for ice cream. Fresh strawberries on my doorstep. Thoughtful things that showed love in the deepest ways.
I saved all those cards. And reading them is super painful. It takes some serious resolve for me to be able to handle the emotional journey they take me on. Opening that box is another punch in the gut. Another startling reminder that I buried my child. You’d think that after 5 years the shock wears off. Not so. Not when it’s your 6 year-old son.
It’s really hard. I feel physically ill all over again.
And yet, it’s also really good. Because in my darkest times, I was never alone. I have memories of people loving me. Some I never even knew. But all of them were drawn into a story God was writing and they brought softness to the harshest chapter.
Most memories don’t fit in boxes. They can’t be cataloged and stored. And they also can’t be tossed out in a discarded pile I’d like to pretend doesn’t exist.
I’ve lived a rich life. I have had amazing highs and terrible, devastating lows. And every one of them has shaped me. They have been a tool that the Lord has used to show his love for me, to show me a little bit more of what matters, what is eternal. He has revealed himself in the happy memories of my children’s laughter on the trampoline and even more so, in the nightmare of tragedy.
I think a lot of memories have passed me by, when I’ve been too distracted or too selfish, too busy or too tired. It’s the daily stuff that I take for granted.
But many memories can also be shoved away, stuffed down by denial, avoidance, or self-preservation.
Sorting all this stuff has helped me think about all the stuff that really matters. The stuff that doesn’t fit in boxes. I want to be still more often and breathe in what is around me. I want to stop and say yes to my kids. I want to learn and grow through difficult times.
I want to revisit the dark times of my life so I can see the moments when light shines the brightest.
Preparation for this new adventure helps shed much of what doesn’t really matter. It makes me want to be more intentional. I want to be sentimental with my time, and minimal with the excess of life. Take in what matters most, and discard the rest. Sit with the beautiful, the hard, the special, and even the painful.
My sentimental heart still has a lot of life to take in. A lot of memories still to be made. I don’t want to miss a thing.
