Read the previous entry in this series: Day 21: Collect All the Digital Pictures or start at the beginning with the Introduction: 5 Ways Clutter Costs.
Sorry this is late. I've stretched myself a bit thin doing both this project and working on my Mother's dressing room for the One Room Challenge at the same time. Today is the day we're to declutter cds, dvds, and other media. I think I interpreted "other media" a bit too broadly given we have "magazines/books/bookshelves" scheduled for Day 26.
The long and short of it is: I took all my Nancy Drews--from Book 1 to Book 50, all but one or two published in the 70's, to a donation centre this evening.
Here's the story.
I believe I bought them all with my own money I earned babysitting in the mid-70s. (I charged $0.75/hour, and after a year, I upped my rates to $1.00/hour.) At 11 and 12, I was absurdly young to be in charge of other people's kids. But I was reliable and available. I kept records. I remember I earned $300.00 in one year.
Anyway. I never intended to keep the Nancy Drews. They travelled from Yellowknife to Edmonton because my Mom packed them up and brought them. Later, when I left home, they went to an outbuilding at my stepfather's farm. When I moved back to the city where my Mother lives--and where I am now--she offered up these slim yellow volumes like they were bars of bullion. I took them and stored them in the basement until I gave them to my dughter when she was ten.
They stayed on the shelves in her room for several years until she asked me to remove them about a year ago. She hadn't read them but she still thought she might. So we moved them to the shelves on the library landing.
Yes, those two shelves of yellow. Those books in the boxes are a few I decluttered.
But she didn't read them.
A couple of months ago, I boxed them up as part of my project to repaint the stairwell and landing. But rather than put them back, I offered them to my daughter's friend who had expressed interest in reading them. I separated them from the others, boxed them up and put them in the hallway for her.
But, she said, no, she didn't have room for 50 slim gold volumes about the girl with titian hair and a girl friend named George. To clear the decks for Thanksgiving, I had my son take them to the basement.
Are you beginning to get the feeling these are the books that will never leave?
I was.
So, tonight, I had my husband help me carry them out to the car.
And off they went.
They really are gone.
I'm fine with it. Though I really did like that graphic band of yellow (with navy!) they made there on the shelves.
Read the next entry in this series Day 23: Your Choice. My Choice? The Top of my Desk.
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1 comment :
Very touching story. Sounds like a difficult, somber task yet you sound at peace with your decision.
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