For the past two days, I've been at my parents' house and the primary objective of this trip, aside from seeing my family, was to clean out their basement. I recently moved and for two weeks, I've been trying to purge my own belongings and to try and simplify my life a bit. So I've been in search and destroy mode lately.
A good lot of the things in storage are my sister's and my toys, school papers, and other childhood objects. Other than coming across them happenstance while searching for something else in the basement and getting warm nostalgic fuzzies, or saving them in hopes of opening a museum about myself, I can't think of any reason to keep this stuff around.
And yet, I feel intense guilt in getting rid of it. I mean, I'll never sit in the yard and move small loads of dirt in a Tonka truck from one arms reach to another, or strategically position GI Joes around the yard for an attack by Cobra that was doomed from the get-go. My Mom doesn't help either. There are still parts of her that pine for the days when she could dress me up in "outfits" and my only cares were whether or not I'd get to rent the Goonies or eat another oatmeal cream pie.
I'm definitely going to be bummed when it leaves and yet there's my overbearing pragmatic side that knows it would continue to sit in the basement collecting dust and going unused for many years to come, until the day that I'd either move it to my own house or leave my parents' to deal with it should they move again.
I wish I felt 100% like this is the right thing to do.
knowing is half the battle (I can't resist)
