What to Keep

Drumroll, por favor:

The basement is done.

Here is a teeny tiny preview for you, with Oliver and Charlie as your hosts.

And here was the basement when Oliver looked like this:

Charlie didn't exist yet, marking this past year a very, very productive one.

We absolutely love our basement, and are slowly getting to know it.  After months and months of planning, it still feels like walking downstairs into someone else's house.  Once in a while, Michael and I let each other sleep in the guest room, because seriously, it feels like a hotel, being two whole levels below children that may wake up in the middle of the night or way too early. 

We have also regained a third parking space in the driveway thanks to the very welcome removal of a POD storage unit which has nestled itself in the front of our house for the better part of a year.  And while I shed no tears with its leaving, there have been some pangs of sadness sorting through its contents: boxes upon boxes upon boxes (upon boxes) of stuff previously stored in a less-pretty basement.  We had figured that if we didn't miss having it while it camped in the POD, we probably didn't need it and pitching would be easy. 

As it turns out, we would have done much better with tossing boxes without opening their lids.  With each box we unpack memory upon memory.  How do you get rid of your favorite childhood toys, tied to times and places that are only shadows now?  Things handed down through generations?  Furniture given to you by a beloved grandfather not-so-recently passed on?  Exactly what do you keep?  I know it's just stuff, but it feels important somehow.  Our home has a hint of Hoarders about it right now; we have removed about half of the stuff, some via trash and Goodwill, others via storage somewhere within the basement.  But the other half stands in piles of feelings, procrastinating the decisions.  

I look at our piles and piles of Oliver and Charlie's toys.  If we purged a few while they slept unawares, they probably wouldn't ask for it the next day, minus a superhero costume or two.  Which of these things, I wonder, will be attaching to their heart like the Santa Bears have done to mine?  Do they think their stuffed animals have feelings that will be hurt if they aren't played with, just as I had thought when I was little, ala Toy Story?  Michael's sister, who was visiting our fire-hazard of a home last week, eyed their childhood Candyland gingerbread markers.  I had rolled my eyes as I told her how Michael wanted to keep the half-ripped gamepieces.  "I told him, 'we could just BUY a new Candyland game.'"  Valerie frowned, and protested, "But they're people too!"

As Oliver and Charlie grow up, remind me to package up their outgrown toys and get rid of them before they know they miss them, before they have to make the decision themselves.  They will have the emptiest basement ever.