Childhood Treasures

I've tried to travel light in my adult life. When I moved to Stanford five years ago, all I brought was what would fit in my car. Last time I moved, I had to rent a 14-foot truck to carry everything. Stuff multiplies.

The way I've been able to travel light for the last 13 years is to ditch stuff I don't need in my parent's basement. Now that I'm grown up with a real job, a husband and a rented house, I decided that it was time to take my stuff off their hands. (This also happened to be my chance to get it moved for free. Thanks new job.) When I was up there 8 months ago, I sorted through a lot of it and threw away the stuff I didn't want. My parents finished getting everything together and packed up last month and the movers brought it about 4 weeks ago.

There were 49 boxes of stuff. Yes, 49 boxes of treasures that I have done without for the last 13 years and wouldn't have missed if they had fallen off the truck on the way here.

We have a very small house and just when I had finally gotten everything from Palo Alto unpacked and put away, this stuff arrived. Half the boxes were full of books, which I unpacked and put on shelves, but the rest is still sitting there in boxes. There's no place to put it if I unpack it, but even if there was, what do you do with all of your childhood stuff? I thought I could be cold-hearted about throwing stuff away, but I'm not as tough as I thought I was. I've got old trophies, old formal dresses, notes from old classes, souvenirs from study abroad trips, and 15 boxes of other stuff that I probably won't need anytime soon, but can't stand to throw out or give away.

Do you still have stuff at your parents' houses? Are they going to make you take it away some day? Have my parents shirked their storage unit duty by foisting this stuff on me?