This is what my sitting room looks like at the moment. I now realise why it’s taken me 18 months to get these boxes out of storage. I’m finding unpacking them very painful. It’s like unwrapping little fragments of my old life – the life I had to shut away in order to move on. Friends have offered to help but I feel as if it’s something I need to do on my own.
I haven’t seen any of these things since we moved out of our family home. At the time, because it was so traumatic I felt as if I filled and then sealed little bits of anger into each and every box. Our belongings, memories and photographs were a constant reminder of my misery and I was happy to shut them away. I also had to be immensely practical. They had to go in one of three different directions:- my rented house, my ex’s new house or storage. It was almost as if everything got screwed up into tiny little balls of paper and now I’m having to re-open each and every item and spread them out across my new house.
Now, instead of anger, each newly opened box exudes a little bit of sadness for a past life. It’s going to take yet another period of readjustment to incorporate my old life alongside my new life.
It’s tempting to just throw everything away. But I feel this would be a mistake. I would regret it in the future.
Working mum
June 13, 2008Oh, I can feel the emotion. It must be difficult, but necessary.
We had our stuff in storage for six months before we bought our new house. When we got our stuff back the emotion was overwhelming. I never knew that I had collected so many memories in so many ordinary items.
Open a bottle, toast the good memories and toss away the bad. Good luck!
nikki_frederick
June 13, 2008You seem to mirror so many of my emotions. I’m about to move out of my family home I’d planned to have forever, but has had to be sold since breakdown of marriage. I know I’ve got to start dividing things, but where do you start.
I’m trying to look at it as the start of my new life.
Nikki xx
Janelle
June 13, 2008hmmm yeah..its like ghosts…skeletons in the cupboards…but there will be GOOD things in there too..its good you are doing it…it is darlin’! healing. therapeutic. though hard. keep us posted. lots of love you inspirational funny clever woman! xx janelle
Kitty
June 13, 2008Oh how I can relate to this post. x
Maggie May
June 13, 2008Oh dear……… what a sad thing you have to do. Mind you …. I think it will be therapeutic in the end.
Hadriana's Treasures
June 13, 2008Hi – don’t throw them away or maybe have a throw away pile and a keep pile or box them up again until you can face them again.
Don’t know whether that’s been of much help. Am going through a similar process here – we are hoarders and have far too much stuff. But yes – each item is vested with so many memories.
SusannahS
June 13, 2008It took me an entire year to completely unpack when I moved into my apartment. Now, 6 years later, I’m finding that I can let go of some of the things I thought I would keep forever. It’s almost liberating in a way.
(And secretly it was a relief to donate that not-so-pretty picture frame which had been a gift from a (now ex)boyfriend’s mother to a charity that could sell it).
I recommend liberal applications of wine and chocolate to aid in the unpacking process.
Anonymous
June 13, 2008i’m feeling for you there…..throwing stuff from a past life away can be very cathartic – a real cleansing and ‘closure’ as they say um….somewhere else, but, one day there will be something – a photo say or an object which, you will suddenly regret losing. If you have the space, hold on to as much as you can until you are really ready to say ‘goodbye’..
leftforofficebike
June 14, 2008You need someone with you and some champagne….far too sad on your own. You will probably cry but i bet you laugh alot as well.xxx
family affairs
June 14, 2008Thank you so much all of you for all your lovely comments – I came back in last night and felt immediately SO MUCH better Lx
A Mother's Place is in the Wrong
June 15, 2008This stuff is tough to deal with. Don’t let it weigh your life down. M xx