I live in Colombia.

I used to live in Chicago.

My dad and I had a house there.

And then he died while I am living here in Colombia.

So when I had to deal with what to do with the house and all the stuff in it, I got rid of the majority of the stuff, and put the rest in a storage bin.

That I am still to this day, paying for monthly.

It’s an interesting thing, packing up your life and storing it somewhere. We all think and believe that when we put our stuff somewhere, it will be there, safe and secure from now until the end of time.

Until it isn’t.

When I left for Colombia all my things were in the house that my dad and I shared and I honestly didn’t think much of it, “Out of sight, out of mind”, is how I approached the thought of all that stuff there. Only when my dad began talking about his health issues and talking about “after he is gone” (not a conversation a kid wants to have with a parent, I know, but yes I understand now how necessary that was to have) did I wonder what in the world I was going to do with all the stuff I had there.

To be honest, I really didn’t want to think about it. Wished it would somehow go away on its own. I thought: “I wish there were some way like in Star Trek where you could just put the stuff in to a machine or “replicator” and just convert the stuff that is in matter form into energy and be done with it forever”.

Easy-peasy and lickety-split.

Well, of course the real word doesn’t work like that, so I had to face the stuff as if they were red dragons to be slain.

So, long story somewhat short, my dad died and I had to deal with the house and all that was in it. However within my personality I have a serious and almost obsessive phobia to the accumulation of material things. Totally hate it. Probably stems from my childhood when we had many things as kids then lost them through a traumatic family event (maybe I’ll write about that one day) so I would just rather not have many things where if I ever wanted to just “pack up and go” (like I did when I decided to come to Colombia) I could be able to do that with not much burden or issue to worry about. Another part of my personality worries about how the mountain of things we as people accumulate and consume affect our environment and our planet.

I mean we just make and have too much STUFF!

You know it’s true, whether you want to admit it or not.

We make more things than people in some cases and we have more things than many of us need. Most of us actually fill our houses with many things that we really don’t need and we look up decades later like, “where the H^&&#@L” did all this “S^&%&T” come from and what in the world am I going to do with it?

Is it any wonder that our basements or garages look like the house and yard from Sanford and Son?

Anyway, I did pack up all the stuff I could, sold what I could, and sold the house with the help of a great friend, Kimberly Offord (She is also an amazing realtor who I got permission to tag, so thanks for letting me do so Kim! Love you! And also, THANKS A MILLION FOR EVERYTHING!) and put the remaining things I couldn’t sell or get rid of, because they are extremely personal to me and can not be sold or given away, into storage.

A 12-foot box.

Which is where they sit…to this day.

But one day I will have to deal with that too.

The crazy thing is that I arrived in Colombia with just two little rolling suitcases and a backpack and since that time, almost eight years ago, I have accumulated a mountain of NEW things that now fill an apartment as well as having bought another car.

Again, more….stuff…that I will eventually have to deal with. Along with my stuff back in Chicago.

What in the world will I do with it all?

I really don’t know. And that’s what worries me. Dying and leaving all my stuff to someone else to deal with.

Every time I look at my stuff here, in Colombia, and when I think about the stuff (sorry, I know you are getting tired of me saying “stuff” constantly but remember I am keeping my posts “PC” for now JAJAJA) back in Chicago, I think of one of my favorite characters from Start Trek, Deep Space Nine.

Odo.

Who said: “I’ll never understand this obsession with accumulating material wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more and more possessions, until your living areas are bursting with useless junk. Then you die, your relatives sell everything, and start the cycle all over again.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself and I totally agree.

So until that day comes, I’ll just keep thinking about having a lot of…stuff…and what in the world to do with it all.

And also until then, I have to deal with the fact that back in Chicago “my whole life fits in a 12-foot box”. And just like in the movie that quote came from where the storage unit manager also said to Julia Robert’s character after she said her life fits in a 12-foot box: “most people never come back for their whole lives”.

And she never did.

And I’m not sure I ever will either.

And I also know that one day I know I will have to.

But for now, for me, everything I have is in a storage container too, a 12-foot box, from a life that I hardly think I ever will return to.

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