The Collection

Last weekend, I did something I've been dreading for some time; I stopped by my storage unit.  I moved into the unit when I first started moving out of my house, over a year ago, when I was heavily pregnant.  My family and I moved boxes upon boxes, quite literally, into the small space - boxes filled with many of Ryan and my favorite things.  I figured the items would be in the storage unit for a few months, that I'd sell my home in the winter and get a plan for what to do next.  In the meantime, while on maternity leave and through the winter months, I'd slowly go through Ryan's things and decide what to do with them.

As you might expect, none of that happened.  I went into labor the night I moved the bulk of the boxes into the storage unit.  Maternity leave doesn't have nearly the quantity of down time you'd expect, so I didn't spend any of it sorting through the things in the storage unit - only adding to it.  When my house flooded in January, it diverted any "free time" I had to taking care of repairs- not taking care of my things.  Time dragged on, more obstacles were added, and with them, my dread grew.  The longer and longer I ignored our things in the unit, the more  I became afraid of what I would find.

But, we must face these things eventually.  And last weekend, I had some time.  When I pulled open the door, I was faced with leaning stacks of boxes.  The ones on the bottom had lost some of their structural integrity and sagged under the weight of what was above.  On the top of each stack were loose items, things that didn't fit well into boxes and perhaps needed some sort of special care.  Despite the sadness of seeing large portions of my and Ryan's possessions in this state, I was actually a little relieved.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.  No stacks had fallen over, and nothing looked destroyed.  It also suddenly seemed manageable - I think in my head the boxes had multiplied.  In real life, there are far more than I want to deal with, but not as many as I had imagined.  This, I can do.

I lifted six boxes into my car.  Four of them contain kitchen stuff from our house, and two contain Ryan's things.  Now the work begins- sorting through what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to keep because I can't bear to get rid of it.  Admittedly, that last category will hold too many items.  I fear that I'll become a hoarder.  Which is ironic, because Ryan was really a bit of a hoarder himself.

No, that's not fair.  Our house looked nothing like a hoarder house - Ryan was way to organized and cared to much about his stuff to be a true hoarder.  He was, in truth, a collector.  Oh, and he had a lot of stuff.  And much of it is, quite frankly, completely useless- but, carries immense sentimental value.  Ryan collected books, historical artifacts and paraphernalia, comic books, baseball cards, CDs, DVDs, and most notably, vintage toys.

I'm not sure when he started doing it.  It was when he was a kid, certainly, but I'm not sure when in our relationship the boxes from eBay started arriving on our doorstep.   Soon, several a week were showing up - Transformers in the beginning.  He wanted to complete his collection of the original old toys.  Then, he finished it, and told me that he was done, because he had them all.  Then, the G.I. Joes started arriving.  He said that he wanted to get them too, but was only going to buy the good guys, not the bad guys.  Then, the vehicles started showing up.  Slowly, Ryan had moved all of my stuff out of the storage closet in the basement, and replaced it with his plastic tubs full of toys.  I was evicted.  He bought new shelves for the basement so that he could put many of the toys on display.  I was eventually assured that he had everything he could buy, that there wasn't anything left, and he was done.

One night, about a month after that declaration, I got home from a dinner we were at together, and there was an enormous box on the doorstep.  Nearly as tall as me.  Ryan had driven separately, and wasn't home yet.  Grumbling, I dragged the box into our living room, and began tapping my foot in irritation.  What the hell was this?  When Ryan got home and opened the door, his face lit up like a little child on Christmas morning.  You'll pardon the cliche - there is just no other way to describe it.  And when I asked, grumbling, what was in the box, he simply exclaimed, "My spaceship!!!"

I wondered if he'd be flying away in it.

The collecting went on and on from there - it never stopped.  But, in all honesty, it actually didn't bother me that much.  I know I'm moaning about it now, in the way a wife does, but after a while, I just got used to it.  This was one of Ryan's many, many hobbies, and I just wanted him to be happy.  To his credit, he really loved the toys.  He talked all of the time about how much fun it must be to be a toy designer.  He'd explain to me the characters, show me how to transform the Transformers, and show me why a particular toy was unique or special.  He cleaned them with Q-Tips and took care of them.  He cleaned a couple the night he died.  His goal was always that he wanted to get as complete a collection as possible, and then sell them for our retirement.  They made him happy, so I didn't mind them.  And, eventually the toys became to me such a part of Ryan's personality that I couldn't imagine him without them.

Now, I'm not loving it so much.  Far too many of the boxes in the storage unit, in my parents' garage, and in Ryan's parents' basement are these toys.  And I haven't been able to do a thing with them because they hold too much sentimental value.  They were one of the last things I could stand to pack up in the house, and when I did it, it was through many tears.  I can deal with Ryan's other collections to an extent- the books, comic books, DVDs, CDs, I have ideas for those.  But all of these toys - it could take an age.  And they take up a TON of space.  I've struggled for some time because I want to do with them what Ryan would want.  He put so much money and time into them, and at least part of the reason was because he thought that some day he'd use them to help take care of us and our family.  Like everything else, it's hard to think that won't happen.  I think he'd be sad if I didn't get anything out of them.  And quite selfishly, I hope that he's up there kicking himself for saddling me with such a lot of work.

Because cleaning out a life is exhausting- emotionally and physically.  How do I part with things that were near and dear to Ryan?  It feels impossible, and yet, I can't keep them all.  While I've been through all of the selling of the house and packing up the boxes, I'm still really just at the beginning of the sifting and sorting.  And it is a BIG pile of boxes.  How do I do this?

I'll probably just start with the kitchen stuff.