The End of an Era: Emptying the Storage Unit

When I first came to Charleston five years ago my family was in the process of moving to England. This meant that unlike most other college students, I was forced to bring everything I owned with me to school rather than leaving it in my parents' basement for all of eternity. All the trinkets and mementos and clothes and CDs- basically every belonging that I had amassed in my 19 years- it all came. I remember the day I moved into the dorms we hadn't separated the college living necessities from what would soon get put in a storage unit, and everyone looked at me like I was absolutely insane. It was truly a ridiculous amount of stuff. It all sat in a storage unit in Mount Pleasant for three years. After graduation when my car no longer had to be housed in the unit I took some time to downsize and get rid of a few things here and there; just enough to get it all to fit in a smaller unit. That was a process that I had no desire to repeat until recently, when my parents made a deal with me involving the emptying of the unit by the end of the year, or the adoption of the monthly bill. Of course I chose the former option, which meant the beginning of a long and painful journey. Here's a portion of the unit on the first day of cleaning a few weeks ago:

The fact that Carl is wearing shorts in this picture is making me even more depressed about the onset of cold weather

Going through that amount of stuff is exhausting! I can totally relate to those crazy people on 'Hoarders' after a day of sorting. The problem was that they were all things that I used infrequently enough to house in a unit a half an hour away, but once I starting going through it all I realized how much sentimental value so much of it had. I had to take a moment and play therapist to remind myself that throwing away things doesn't equate to throwing love or memories away. Yes it's cheesy but it helped. After several trips to Goodwill, the dumpster, and down Memory Lane we finally finished up the project today:

Allison: 1 Storage Unit: 0

Other life updates: I've been ever so patient in waiting for the professional pictures from our wedding to be ready for everyone's viewing pleasure. Our photographer was awesome and I know that she's working really hard to make everything perfect. She emailed me on Friday to say that she was finishing up, and in the time since then I've been compulsively checking my email every five minutes, dying to see the pictures. I can't wait to share them with everyone, so hopefully we don't have to wait too much longer- I might go crazy otherwise.

Car shopping was sort of fun but mostly not. We found one we really liked, a 2010 Subaru Forester, and we're just waiting to hear back from the seller. Fingers crossed, folks! Subaru owners all have really good things to say about their cars, and the longevity is impressive. Hopefully this will be a car purchase that lasts us for quite some time. Plus I think it'll give me a lot more street cred than the Jetta... at least when I'm shopping at Whole Foods. Right?