Boxed In

My move from a suburban house back into a city apartment meant that I lost living space and many closets. It was also the end of an era, as my two children were grown and living in their own homes, and I was eager to get back to Manhattan. Not only would this eliminate my long commute for work, but I missed the city, having lived there before moving to suburbia when my children were young.

Most of the furniture in our four-bedroom house was given away, some was sold, and we moved into a much smaller, two-bedroom apartment in my old neighborhood, in Manhattan’s East Side. Many boxes were packed up for the move, and most came into the apartment to be unpacked and put to use. Others were put in a storage room in my new apartment building. They stayed there until now, thirteen years later.

My husband, Doug, had a long-term hobby of making and playing miniature war games. He recently decided to give up this hobby, and needed to vacate his studio, where he created scenarios for these games. He had rented this studio when we moved back to the city, as we no longer had the needed space, since the basement in our suburban house was the venue for his building materials for his wargaming. He sold much of the materials, but there were some things he wanted to keep, at least for a while. We don’t have extra space in our apartment, certainly not for troops and war game paraphernalia. I suggested we go through the boxes that were in the storage room so we could throw out what I expected to be mainly useless things collected over a lifetime, after all— we hadn’t missed them in the thirteen years they were in storage. We could then put my husband’s war game materials into this storage area until he chose to use these materials again, perhaps to run games in future miniature wargame conventions.

We did it. After realizing that neither my husband or I had the energy or stamina to shlep so many boxes, we enlisted the help of our son and his wife. One Sunday morning they came to move the boxes from the storage room into my apartment, and then brought the boxes from the studio to store in the storage room.  

A total of 18 boxes came from storage into my apartment foyer. There were three or four with tax materials from at least ten years ago. I threw out or shredded everything that was more than seven years old (based on a recommendation I had read for how long tax returns should be kept). From the more recent tax files I threw out things that would not be likely to be needed for an audit, like electric bills, receipts. and old car insurance policies (I’m a bit of a hoarder, so I keep all bills and receipts and store them with each year’s tax materials). Going through these materials brought back memories from all these years – of clothes I bought and the special events they represented, growing children’s needs, repairs for the house and medical visits. This took many more hours than I had planned, as I savored some memories and resurrected regrets associated with others.

After tossing and shredding tax-related materials, two boxes were gone- this was looking promising. 

Then the challenges emerged.

My husband Doug has three boxes of research articles written by him and his colleagues, all more than 20 years old, from his days as a criminologist/research scientist. He saw these as a treasure trove, with many articles published before the internet, and nowhere else to be found. I thought about getting them all scanned, but knew this would be a large undertaking. Determined to find a home for them, Doug called a criminal justice university library to see if they would be interested. They were. But in this COVID time they were not accepting any new materials. My husband said they should call him when they were ready to receive them and he would bring them over. Although this means these boxes will continue to reside in my foyer for a while, I am glad for my husband, for he is reassured that part of his legacy will be sustained. 

There were lots of family photos, including the baby books I created for my son and daughter, and thankfully they will take them. There are also lots of old photos, with my children-   school photos, holidays, summer camps- where were they all to go? I can’t throw them out. I will talk to my children about this. Meanwhile these boxes will remain. Looking through them reminds me of their youth, and mine. All fond memories. There are also photos of my parents, siblings, old friends, dogs I have cherished- some of whom have died … can’t throw them away.

Memorabilia from my children has a special place in my heart.  These include years of Mother’s Day cards and letters from sleep away camp. I even found an envelope with short curly dirty blond hair, from my son’s first haircut. He’s now 41. I showed him some of the letters and the beloved blond locks, but there was not much interest. I can’t throw that wonderful treasure box away either.

Sightseeing photos fill another box. For many years, pre- phone cameras, I took and developed many pictures when I went to interesting places for work or vacation, often in Europe. The photo development shops where I brought them provided two copies of each photo, and I kept them all, and the negatives. Many are of places I don’t remember, but they are lovely statues, churches, fields, bodies of water. I could throw out the duplicate copies, and the negatives… but that still leaves a boxful. It’s not going anywhere yet- memories of places I traveled, when travel was possible years before COVID, are important reminders of what life was once like.

And I don’t know what to do with the box full of VCR tapes – some are classic movies (like Star Wars), some are tapes of family parties, including Bar and Bat Mitzvah tapes mainly filled with scenes from the parties we had after the religious ceremonies.  All these will have to be turned into discs to be viewable. I will do that sometime. For now, they can stay in the same box with the photos.

Then there are the tchotchkes that decorated my environments- three boxes full. These are mainly travel memorabilia like little statues (I collected Mother and Child figures, Russian stacking dolls), and framed family pictures- I had many places to display such things in my house and in my office. My diplomas are in this box too.  I packed up my office things when I retired over a year ago and the books and papers I still use as a consultant are now in my apartment study, the tchotchkes went into the storage room. It’s hard to know what to do with them and other work life materials. They represent an important part of my life’s identity, and I’m not ready to part with that yet- neither the objects nor the professional identity they represent.

So of the 18 boxes, I am down to 15. Not much progress for two months. All are sitting in my foyer. Some are made of tan cardboard, about 1.5 feet square, some are white file boxes about the same size, and all are a little crushed. They sit piled two or three high, leaning against each other and the foyer wall for support. They are waiting for me to decide their fate.

Although the storage room is almost totally filled with what was in my husband’s studio, I think a few boxes can go there. But I don’t know what to save, nor what to do with the rest.

But I don’t need to decide right now, as I am not too concerned with the unsightly piles they create.  During COVID time we are not having guests at home, we only see family and friends in outside venues. Since no one is coming to our home I don’t care if it looks messy, so the boxes are safe for a while.

Also, I recently visited my daughter in her new home, a large house in Virginia. She has lots of storage space in her basement, and when I told her about the boxes she offered to store them there for me. Now there’s a thought.