No Woman's Land - The Basement

7/21/2012

No Woman's Land - The Basement

I have a large, unfinished but completely filled up basement. The basement is nearly chock full of "man" things - tools (manual and power - but mostly Tim-Allen sized power), equipment, computer stuff and more computer stuff, cables, wiring and other things that I have no idea what they are or what they do.  And the men in my life like it that way.  They don't want or need me pussyfooting around in "their" space.  Oh wait there is a small clarification - it's okay for me to go to the freezer to forage for dinner - that is, after all MY domain.

Jeff and I in our nearly 38 years of marriage have accumulated some STUFF and unfortunately (in some cases) lots of it.  We each in our own way hoard things.  I believe that all my beautiful glass and collectibles will prove to be an asset to the boys when it's time to get rid of everything.  I believe that most of Jeff's "treasures" will be valuable only to the 1-800-GOTJUNK company or perhaps the Smithsonian.  It has been a longstanding, mild and often humorous disagreement through the years and one that will never be resolved - at least while the two of us are still breathing.

To be fair, we have from time to time gone down to the basement together and tried to sort through some of our papers from years long past.  Like canceled checks from 1974 through say 1986.  Why do we still have them you ask?  Because frankly neither one of us can bear to part with them.  Again you ask why?  Every time we go through the checks we see the weekly checks we wrote to the Gingerbread House for $25.00 (daycare), checks we wrote for groceries and other daily living essentials.  So once we open up the canceled check box(s) we are both sent backward in time.  A time that right now we think of as peaceful (and it really wasn't all that peaceful, think 3 boys).  We remember a time when the boys were young, we were younger and were in the business of establishing ourselves as a family.

I know that someday Jeff and I will have to bite the bullet and let these pieces of paper go.  After all, they are merely pieces of paper and by shredding them it will in no way reduce our memories of the early Bassett years.  We just think it will.