Storage, baggage, and the things we keep.
I paid way too much for the oversized storage unit. It was on the first floor. It was air-conditioned (necessary for the art and at one point the legos), When I was still with my ex, the storage unit was a constant point of contention: even though it held both of our stuff (we moved from a house in Philly to an apartment in Austin) they claimed they could get rid of their stuff. It was my stuff that was the problem. How was that true, I always wondered? Where was the logic? Then do it, I would say. It didn’t matter. The storage, the problems, and the cost were all mine. It was both logistically impossible and sentimentally difficult for me to rid myself of the storage unit. It was more of a logistical issue for them. But paying it was my responsibility, my fault, my weight. Like so much of our relationship.
After we broke up, they left their stuff in the unit, the stuff they didn’t want, for me to deal with. As some sort of penance for costing them money or mental anguish or for being me. Even though I am small and disabled and cannot drive, so donating a bed frame, two reading chairs, a TV stand, and a bookcase was next to impossible for me to do without spending more money I didn’t have. So it sat, for a year, with childhood mementos and 3 portable air conditioner units from our time in Philly (what if the AC went out and Tuna got heat stroke again?) and the little heaters from when ours was unreliable and giant tubs of shitty plasticware that their mother still wanted us to send back (???) and art my aunt made and bad art I made and my bicycle which wouldn’t fit in my apartment.
The unit was on autopay and I forgot to check on it when I got a new card and the notices from the storage company continuously went to spam. I, as a millennial, do not answer unknown numbers. And then finally, I did get an e-mail in my inbox thanking me for moving out of the storage unit. I immediately called the company, flabbergasted, confused as to how I got no warning that my things were gone. But it was done, someone had bought them. He contacted the unlucky buyer (seriously, it was a lot of plasticware) to let them know I would like any photos or degrees back.
I was on the train to Philly when I got this call, excited to spend a weekend with friends, but I anxiously told my Mom, my cousin, my best friends. My mom comforted me, though much of the stuff came from her, my ex often joking that the storage unit was my “literal baggage.” It could be replaced. And I realized, for the most part, it could. There are things I miss and will miss and can’t replace, and things I would like to replace. But most of it was a monument to a sprawling childhood filled with stuff we dragged from house to house and an abusive relationship where stuff was used as a battering ram (metaphorically). I felt finally free. I will always miss the Winnie The Pooh watercolor my Aunt Ellen painted, but I also haven’t hung it since I was in middle school. The Holly Hobbie glasses that were very special (my name is holly) can be bought for 10 dollars on eBay. My bike, while once expensive, is worn and was also always too tall for me and was too heavy. Some Christmas and Halloween decorations I collected will be missed, but they too are just things.
My brother went to collect the two boxes and the tote the buyers returned. What they deemed of “no value.” My sketchbooks. School papers. A collection of Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes that my brother asked me to save from my Mom’s old house when she called the junk haulers. Some crappy art I made. School papers, which I am glad to have. My diplomas. Photos.
Everything else, whoosh gone.
But I’m still here. Still standing. Without 3 just in case air conditioners, 2 just in case heaters, chairs I would never fit in an Austin apartment, and childhood toys I would never look at. I now have just the things that mean something, meant enough to come with me. To stay with me. My Aunt Ellen’s other paintings, my Mom’s Barbie, and my American Girl Dolls. My books. Shelves of photo albums and art on the walls. The things that built me, meant something to me, not to someone else. Not guilt, baggage, or an ex getting revenge. Just me.