Storage Worn

Wednesday November 27^th, 2013 – Kenosha, WI

    Over the last couple of weeks, a large part of my life has been a moving experience. Literally. I’ve rented a storage unit, and for the umpteenth time in my life every worldly bauble and trinket I possess is packed away awaiting my next stop. I’ve moved so often, I qualify for gypsyhood.

   The last time I tried to count my moves, I think I got to 18. That was a few moves ago, and I’m not interested in nailing an accurate total. It’s a chore and something I’m not looking forward to, but I have no choice. It’s time to find the next adventure, and that’s what I’ve been doing of late.

   I had a nice three year run where I was staying, and I have no complaints. I didn’t have any bad blood or cross words with the woman who owns the house where I lived, and it was a great place in a super neighborhood. I had fair rent, and never once was I late paying it. It was a sweet deal.

   But as happens all the time, circumstances changed and it was time for me to move on. That’s exactly how it went the last place I stayed, which was also a three year run. It was the sister-in-law of the woman I’m moving from now, so technically I got six years of living out of one deal.

   I have always been a model tenant in that I pay my rent religiously. I don’t smoke, drink or do drugs, and I’m very much to myself. I’m usually reading or working when I happen to be home, but I’m on the road a lot more than I’m home so most of the time it’s a great deal for everybody.

   As the years pass, I’m liking the road life less and less. I’ve enjoyed these last two places very much, and it was not fun having to pack up and start over again. The time before this one was an absolute nightmare, as I was doing cruise ships at the time. The woman had to be out in 30 days because she remarried and they’d bought a different house. I had two days to move all my stuff.

   That was about as brutal as it gets. I was gone on the ships and had nobody to help me start to pack anything so I threw everything in boxes willy-nilly and jammed what I could into a storage unit. I threw away a ton of stuff, but I had no choice. I had two days and then it was back at sea.

   This time I could see it coming, so I had at least a couple of weeks to get ready. I’d been trying to get organized all year, and throwing away things I didn’t need or at least sorting it all into the same category so I could pretend I was a little bit organized. It’s hard not to accumulate clutter.

   I have the smallest size unit I could find, which is 5x5. I crammed as much as I could into that space, and still had a bit left over so I decided what I could live without and donated a few boxes of books, clothes and self help audio programs to the Salvation Army so I could fit everything in.

   At some point, I’ll go through it all and hopefully lighten the load even more. If I haven’t used it in a year – out the door it goes. That’s not always easy to do, but the more times one moves the easier it gets to toss something. Eventually, I’d like to be able to have everything fit into one car.

   The last thing I expected at this stage of the game is to have everything I own in a storage unit, but that’s where I sit. I have no idea where I’m going to live in 2014, and that’s not where I want to be. Is it time to move to another state? Who knows? A little security would calm my nerves.

My life in a nutshell.