Around 2 am one sleepless night in Hong Kong, I realized the waste of storing a first-generation TiVo for eleven years.
So while in the US this summer we visited a warehouse down a blackberry-choked road outside of Tacoma, Washington. Our goal: letting loose our unneeded possessions into the thrift shop wilds.
Perhaps the Lost Ark of the Covenant was in the next wooden vault over.
Inside the warehouse, workers pried open our wooden vaults. We peered inside at piles of boxes and brown-paper-wrapped lumps marked unhelpfully in 2005 as “papers,” “tools,” and “books.”
Which contained prizes and which contained junk? We opened, unwrapped and assessed at it all.
The highlights of our dusty groping included:
Dental retainer
5 pairs of skis
Alarm clock radio gifted by Santa in 1984
Assorted notes from university
Wedding photos
Garden hoses
Climbing equipment
Once cutting edge LCD TV
Home brew equipment
3 pairs of ski boots
Girl Scout sash
Boxes and boxes of assorted books
VCR player
Baby book made for me by my mom
Casette-type answering machine
We sorted and stacked into two piles: re-store and let the warehouse workers make disappear.
Cutting our storage by two-thirds brought a lightness to our hearts. A lightness only slightly darkened by the knowledge that we’d be repeating the process in 2026.
What are you storing?
