Storage Unit

Back in 2021, my lease was ending and I needed to find a new place to live. Various options of trying to find a new place to live with roommates fell through so I made the decision to put most of my stuff in a storage unit and drive to different family members homes and work remotely from wherever they lived. Read more about that decision here. 

Although I have been back in Virginia for a couple of years now, I’ve had to keep paying for my storage unit and leave most of my stuff there. Probably two or three times a year the price of my storage unit would go up, but usually not too much, so I was okay with it. But recently I received an email informing me the price of my unit would go up by $70/month. No way was I going to accept that much of an increase in the rent. 

The increase in the rent has been my motivation to try and get all of my stuff out of the storage unit before the price increase takes effect. So recently, I’ve been going through all of my stuff and throwing away things and donating things. I’m going to make it work to not have a storage unit. 

Can I tell you, though, how hard it’s been to get rid of stuff?! It’s really hard to convince myself that I should actually purge my things. I, of course, am still keeping quite a bit but I have thrown away/donated a bit too. 

Since this post is mostly for me below are some items I found amongst my boxes that I may or may not have thrown away/donated but took a picture because I wanted to remember. 

It’s kind of funny some of the stuff I had decided to keep through the years, like this cheese advertisement. It is a pretty great ad but I have now thrown it away. 

I found this old t-shirt from the temple walk I did while I was in the YSA ward in 2013. Our YSA ward was asked to help the youth of the stake with their temple walk by helping at some of the pit stops or walking with and encouraging the youth. I ended up walking the whole way with some of the youth. I believe the walk was 14 miles total. It was tiring but awesome!

I used to wear this t-shirt but it no longer fit me and it was stained so I took a picture and threw it away. 

I bought these sandals in Taiwan. I used to wear them all of the time, but I haven’t worn them in years. I knew I wasn’t going to wear them anymore so I donated them or threw them away.

I had been keeping my Missionary Daily Planners from my mission. I had a really hard time convincing myself to throw these away, but I finally did. I had been moving them around with me for so many years and I just didn’t think it was worth it anymore. 

I still went back and forth even after I threw them away (the trash was still in the house) but I ultimately decided to just throw them away. Now that they’ve been gone for couple of weeks, I don’t think about it anymore.

I received this bear from one of my students in Taiwan as a parting gift. This is one of the many things I kept. This bear is too cute to give up. :)

Getting rid of stuff is really hard but I feel like I should do it every so often. I may have more posts in the future about emptying my storage unit, but we’ll see.  🤷