theboondork's RV blog

Memories

6/7/2023

Click the pics of the grandkids, it puts a smile on their face... And I like to see them smile.

The day's march by one after another, so similar I can hardly tell the difference. The mornings are cool and clear, allowing me to start checking things on the truck so it will pass its emissions test. And fooling around in the Arctic Fox at half speed, trying to separate all the things that were once so important to me, into piles of things to keep, and things that go in the trash.

I find it difficult to get in the mood to get rid of things in the Arctic Fox because it represents starting another phase in my life of seemingly never-ending downsizing. It is especially difficult because everything in the Arctic Fox has undergone an initial downsizing when I moved into the Fox, and an on-going downsizing as I traveled in the Fox, leaving my ever-diminishing possessions in various dumpsters in the tiny towns I frequented.

And now, once again, I'm sorting through the detritus of my life, attempting to separate my often used possessions from the solely sentimental worldly goods that have no use to me but still tug at my heartstrings and beg to remain in my care till the end of time. There are many good things about being a full-timer, but getting rid of the things with sentimental value is the hardest thing of all.

I have learned through living a full-time life that you don't need much to live comfortably; I feel I have almost everything in the Lance and the truck right now that I need to live a semi normal, comfortable life. But comfort is not the only thing you need in life; most folks need a physical connection to their past, and that's what sentimental possessions represent.

Photographs from the past are the backbone of sentimental memories, but you also need more tangible assets. A scrap of paper your kindergartner drew on in school, a coffee cup your junior high school student made in a craft class. Your child's first shoes. All of these things are a connection to the past, and it's a connection most of us need

So how do I separate the things I need to live a semi normal, life of comfort from those things that serve no purpose except to connect me with the past? I don't know if there's an easy way to do it, if there is I haven't found it. But I do know this.... no matter how I do it, it's painful.

Theboondork

8 Comments

OFM

6/7/2023 08:07:27 pm

Referring to your last paragraph. I have been through that and still have no idea how I came through it at least partially sane. Best wishes on your efforts.

Tom

6/7/2023 08:54:59 pm

Thank you, Barney. I guess everybody that chooses to simplify their life has to go through the painful sorting procedure of what can stay and what has to go. But I think the difficulty really hits home when you're living in something like a van or truck camper where the living and storage space is so limited that there is simply no place to put things you don't actually need.

But no one is making me live this way; I have chosen to live in a truck camper, feeling that it's the best balance I can find for ease of traveling and being able to camp anywhere and still have a warm comfortable place to stay no matter what the weather. So I shouldn't whine about being unable to fit an Arctic Fox full of stuff into a Lance truck camper..... I shouldn't... But I will.

Tom

KennyD

6/8/2023 09:53:30 am

Sound like you need a small storage locker in Denver.

6/8/2023 12:38:28 pm

Having a small storage locker in Denver would make my life so much easier KennyD. But unfortunately due to the amount of people moving to the Denver area storage rooms are hard to find, and fairly expensive. I have a storage room 5 miles from where I used to live in the mountains near Woodland Park Colorado. And I've already got stuff in that storage room that I would love to sell, but laziness and procrastination keeps me putting off deleting that storage room and the stuff in it till next year, and the year after, and the year after that....

Tom

Linda

6/8/2023 12:21:17 pm

I recently came across something that helps. Do you remember your first car? Do you still have it?

6/8/2023 01:12:12 pm

I absolutely remember my first car Linda it was a black 1957 Ford Fairlane. And I wish I still had it because I'm sure it would be worth more than the $125 I paid for it. Bear in mind I had to clean a lot of stalls as an equine sanitation engineer to save the money for that Ford.

I know I must sound like a pack rat or a hoarder wanting to keep everything, but I'm actually a firm believer in limiting the stuff you own. Of course for me that didn't apply to tools, guns, fishing equipment and RVs... And this isn't the first time that I've owned two RVs at once. But in general I got rid of a whole lot of stuff when I moved from a three-story house to a 30 foot Arctic Fox fifth wheel, and it was mostly painless.

But now squeezing all of that stuff that was in the Arctic Fox into the Lance is very painful. Because the Lance barely has room for the things I absolutely need, much less the kind of tools I like to carry, the amount of clothes I carry because I don't like doing laundry, and the spare parts and doodads for the camper and the truck.

I'm slowly getting it done, slowly being the key word here, I've got a lot of stuff laying in the floor of the Lance and no brilliant ideas about where I'm going to put it all. So don't laugh if you happen to see me trundling through "Q" this winter looking like the Beverly Hillbillies
heading for California.

"Come listen to the story bout a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed, and then one day he was shooting at some food, and up through the ground come a bubbling crude... Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea."

Tom

6/9/2023 01:24:48 pm

The point is, you don't have to keep the item to keep its memories.

6/9/2023 02:58:08 pm

Point well taken Linda, my response proved your point was correct.

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