Spring Cleaning- Got Junk?

Michelle and I have lived at our current home in Newmarket for almost 20 years now. We moved into our home in early December 2000.  It has been our sanctuary and haven ever since.

When we moved in, Jonathan, Joshua and Sophia were six, four and one years old respectfully. Michelle and I were, during the late 90's, perpetually  sleep deprived. (I think I may have mentioned that in a previous post). This made for an interesting move in.

My dear mother had passed away that year, and we still had many of her personal items from her home, still unopened in boxes & bins in our garage and basement at the old house. On moving day, we simply placed all of her items, along with a wide selection of our current 'not used' items, into our new basement on moving day. We told ourselves that we would have the time to unpack and organize them later. These boxes and bins are still there, unopened 20 years later. A word of advice - do not delay, do it when you move in, lol.

Over the years we have also found it very difficult to part with items that we have purchased or received. We have changed our decor, purchased newer versions of items or simply indulged in some special gadget or gizzmo and instead of giving or throwing away the older version, we simply placed them in the basement for safe keeping (because you never know, we may decide that you may need them at a later date, right?) or there was always that elusive garage sale we were going to have.  Wrong! 

Over the next 20 years our basement has slowly filled up. If you walked into our basement this very week, you would swear that Michelle and I are hoarders. 

Our basement represents a time capsule of our lives. We have boxes, bins and bags full of days gone by. Full of memories.

Believe it or not, we still have all of the baby furniture and baby toys from our three children there. We have all of the fad toys and gadgets that were 'must haves' packed away on shelves: beanie babies, hockey cards, lego, train sets, hockey equipment,  medieval knights, and a collection of dolls and build a bear accessories (Coco is the best dressed bear in town), such as you would not believe. We thought that perhaps we could pass them down to our children's children some day. We even have boxes of our old university text books from the eighties (just in case we may need to reference them at some point. Really! Why didn't we give them away or throw them away years ago)? Michelle keeps reminding me that we kept them because we were going to turn one of our rooms into a library with a rolling library ladder - her dream. It's still a dream 20 years later!

One of my goals in retirement was to finally tackle the basement. I had planned to 'get it done' over the summer. It was on my 'to do' summer list. It finally needed to be done and there were no more excuses about not having the time to do it. I was no longer on vacation this summer, I was retired now. No more excuses. My cancer diagnosis and subsequent tests and therapies derailed these plans.

Now that my treatments have been completed and I am fairly symptom free, tackling the basement has once again risen the top of the pile of things to do. This is the week that our basement finally gets tackled (or at least started)!

A lifetime of memories currently lives in our basement. Going through these boxes, bags and bins this week is taking much longer than anticipated. Each time you open a new box, you are transformed to a different time and place in our lives. These are memory boxes and bins. The collection represents us and our family. This is making this job very difficult and time consuming, especially at this difficult time in our lives. These memories are so important right now.

When you are diagnosed with cancer, you immediately think the worse. In my case, the worse is my new reality. Still, I have been given the gift of time. My treatments have gone well and they have provided me with more time then my doctors had expected.   

Cleaning the basement (or our trip down memory lane) has been both heartwarming and tragic at the same time. What memories, still to come, will I miss or not be a part of?  But at least right now I can make choices on how to spend my time and with a sense of urgency, make things happen.

As a family and as a couple, we are trying our best to make as many new memories as possible. These memories however, will not be stored in our basement but in our hearts.

Here's to making new memories and to finally tackling your own basements! Do it, do it now but be prepared to go down your own memory lane.

Richard