The Storage Wars, Yet Again

 I have decided that I have to tackle the upstairs storage room.

35 years' worth of stuff has been dumped in there.

In every house we rented, there was never enough space to keep everything, so every few months, things got packed away and put into storage. The idea was to go back and sort out the stuff, throw away what we didn't need and keep things that could be useful later. This was great when the kids were little; outgrown toys, clothes and school books got put up there. The problem is, we never went back to throw out things! When we knew we were moving here, we did clean out a lot of the oldest stuff. Mikey was in his 30's, but I still had his baby clothes! Why?

The few times that we cleaned out left me in tears. I found a little bag that all the kids used for school. I remember buying it for Mikey; it had Mickey Mouse on it, I thought seeing a familiar character would comfort Mikey when he started school! Just finding that had me sitting on the floor, crying. It wasn't the things themselves, but the memories attached to them. Another box we opened had some of Hisao's clothes. I thought that I had thrown out everything, but obviously not; that was another lot of crying! What I decided to do was to keep a few things that hold very special memories and let the other stuff go. I told the kids that once I had left the storage room, the boxes that we had sorted through could go into the trash. It helped if I didn't see it being thrown away; I didn't think about it!

When we moved in here, a lot of stuff went upstairs. We moved from a house with 6 rooms, plus a big living/dining/kitchen area, to a house with 3 rooms, a tatami room and a kitchen/dining area, less than half the space we had before, so no room at all! A lot of things had to be put upstairs. In the other house, we had two rooms that we used for teaching, with 100s of books and other teaching materials. The rooms were off-limits to the cats.

All those books had to go somewhere.

The photo is of the main classroom that we had set up; the room next to it also had a load of books. Then there are all the things that Hannah didn't move to her apartment. Her toys, books and more books, plus clothes that she wasn't sure whether to keep or not. 

So a lot of stuff is still up there, but as I know, it's impossible to organise a lot of stuff, especially when some of it is really trash.

This past week or so, a couple of things have happened. One is that David started taking the outside trash to the city incinerator; he's made a few trips with his car loaded. Which means we now have a way to dispose of the trash, which has helped clear my head. For a long time, I've been wondering what to do with all the trash. I know there had to be a way to get rid of it, but how? Now that has been sorted. The other is my mindset; I have to tackle this situation, otherwise it will be hanging over my head all the time. It's like an itch in the back of my mind that won't go away! 

Today, Christopher and I went upstairs. This is what greeted us.

I stood in the middle to take these photos; both ends of the room are a disaster.

We did a lot, but I didn't take any after photos. 

I really hope to be able to go upstairs a few more times this week. I sorted one box of very old clothes that can go in the trash. I also found 100 yen and a necklace that I bought for Hannah a few years ago, she had put in a different box from her other jewellery!

I didn't get to the books; there are still boxes of books that need shelves, so that's the next thing to tackle.

I would love to get this done before it gets too hot! Today it was about 22℃, next week it'll be up to 27℃, that's getting a bit too hot to work in!

I have to keep my determination to get this big job done, but I think once it's done, it'll be easier to keep clean and to find things that we need from up there. I want to store off-season clothes and blankets up there, which, at the moment, is almost impossible. 

Wish me luck!