Storage

Today‘s dress is from a market in South Africa. I was there at the end of 2011. What a beautiful country. I‘d love to go back. I also got a pair of pink ballet flats, but I left them at my parents‘ old apartment and they went missing. That happened a lot there. Storage is a strange thing. The other week, my phone alerted me that I had run out of storage on my iCloud and my phone would no longer be backed up until I increased my storage. I didn’t want to pay an extra $8 a month for storage. I’d rather delete things. It turns out my photos take up by far the most space. I love taking photos and keeping them, to look back on at times. I don’t usually delete photos of ex’s either. Too much hassle. And I look great and happy in some of them. I have around 50K photos on my phone. I’ve been deleted some videos and photos i don’t need anymore, but I still need more space! It’s similar with my clothing. Last week on the new Sex and the City show, Carrie goes through racks of clothing in her downtown apartment. She has less space than I do! She wants to archive her collection and give some of it to Lily, charlotte‘s daughter, since she has no children of her own. My collection is extensive, as you can see. It fills 4 closets and there isn’t room for more. To get an item in and out isn’t easy. I’m pretty organized and mostly know what’s in each closet. When I can’t find something, it’s hard for me to deal with. I don’t have storage in my building. My parents have a storage unit because they downsized to a smaller apartment, but one day they hope to have more space. One day. Should they just get rid of what they have and buy new things then? What about all my dad‘s treasured books? When I moved back to NYC, I left my things in a storage unit in San Francisco. I didn’t know my stuff would sit there for 8 months while I tried to figure out my life. When I found my apartment, I wanted my things. It cost a lot to store everything and get it across the country, but to replace everything would have been worse. I have second hand couches I found for under $100. Nice couches! But it’s always a question. What’s the point of storage? Are we just holding on for no reason? When my family sold our mill last March, my aunt couldn’t bear to get rid of a few pieces of furniture. A cousin with a storage company offering to store them. when I saw the pieces, they looked like junk to me. I couldn’t think of who would want them. How long will they sit there, unused? But it’s much easier for one person to toss another’s items and label them as not worth saving. I wouldn’t have wanted my things thrown out. Even now, I only want to sell things because I don’t have the space. If I did, I’d keep it all. But I might still feel the heaviness of too many things in my life. The reality is that we don’t need so much. We live in a consumerist culture that encourages us to keep buying. The Casper mattress I sleep on is one I shared with an ex-boyfriend. But it’s a perfectly good mattress so why buy a new one. I don’t know how much my collection is “worth,” but I’ve put a lot of time into curating it. I’m curious what will happen next.