Someday Is Locked Away

We Americans are a restless lot, always curious about what's over the next hill. If trends tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau hold steady, one in six of us will pack our life in boxes and hit the road this year in search of a better job, a bigger house, a less crowded neighborhood, more city perks, a cabin in the mountains, a cottage on the beach, or simply to look for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Half of the relocations will be local, within the same county; the rest will be evenly split between interstate and intrastate movement. Even if we're not among the nearly 44 million citizens who'll get a new address in 2001, chances are we'll daydream about a different life in a different place.

Let's face it -- once we get into the groove of our daily routine, we get antsy to change it. As we feed the dog, ferry the kids to swimming lessons and spend too many hours at the office, we fantasize about "someday." Someday we'll just sit on the porch and watch sunsets. Someday we'll have time to read all the books we're stockpiling in the attic. Someday we'll grow our own tomatoes. Someday we'll cut our own firewood on our own ranch.

These dreams keep storage locker owners in business. I am an expert on this because, for the past nine years, I've written a monthly check to rent a 10-by-20-by-8-foot concrete box located 5,000 miles away from where I live.
My storage locker represented my "someday." But, like the grain of sand in the oyster, it became a constant, low-level irritant between my husband and me. "Why are you hanging onto all this stuff?" he'd ask every six months or so. I never had a good answer.

This summer I decided to let go of my long-held dream of owning a small cabin near a trout stream. I rationalized that by getting rid of all the stuff I'd kept to furnish such a cabin, I'd become "sensible," save money and live more in the present than in the future.

My resolve was firm and my hand steady as I raised the big metal door guarding dusty old tables, crated dishes with patterns I couldn't remember, hidden slides and photos from long-ago trips I barely recalled.
"OK," I told myself firmly, "start pricing this junk for a quick sale."

Five hours later, half a box of old books was ready to donate to the library; everything else was in the "keep" pile.

How could I get rid of handmade quilts and bronzed baby shoes, my dad's World War II footlocker and an original Dave Brubeck "Take Five" recording, an English china teapot with Queen Elizabeth II's likeness on it and a teddy bear with a chewed-off ear? Even my husband's ancient Underwood typewriter with the missing "w" key had gotten a reprieve. 

But what could we do with four tons of memories when the locker we were sure we wouldn't need was promised to other hoarders and we were scheduled to leave our former hometown in two days?

We called U-Haul. Then we rented another storage locker three days and two states away, one much closer to the small mountain meadow where "someday" we hope to build a log cabin with a front porch facing the sunset.
After a five-minute driving lesson that included a warning not to back up "unless you absolutely have to," I released the emergency brake and gave the big truck the gas.
I couldn't wait to see what was over the next hill.


© 2001 The Women Syndicate

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