We cleaned out our storage locker a couple weeks ago. I sorted through all the clothing and donated a third and brought a third back with us. A third of the clothes I’d stored were missing, as were some other things.

What I kept includes a couple of bright-colored cotton sweatshirts that I wore immediately, a plum/berry-colored sweatshirt, a ribbed cotton zip-up cardigan hoodie, a long red cardi, some shoes, favorite gym shorts, a skort I’ll wear when my legs are tighter & my butt’s bigger, BELTS, and a stash of lingerie, swimsuits and pjs that I’ll go through later.

I can’t remember many pieces I passed on. The luggage piece I donated with them fits in an overhead bin on a plane. There was a sleeveless blouse, silky fabric with a beautiful blues print that I rarely wore and would not buy again because it’s polyester. Also an oversized grey sweatshirt with a detail at the hem and collar that makes it look like it’s layered over a navy top. I like that kind of playful interpretation of a classic—“lurking quirk”—and recall wearing the heck out of that sweatshirt, but these days I think it’s too much grey for me.

What was missing—warning, this paragraph gets emotional—was probably one of the first runs I sent with the guy I hired to help put stuff in the storage locker. They were all carefully packed boxes, the kind you do at the beginning of the move when it all still makes sense, not at the end when you say, “how is there still more stuff” and cram random things together. They were a box with large ceramic serving pieces—a chips & dip set, a Fioriware platter, a beautiful large pasta bowl. There were two bins—those long, thin ClosetMate ones that fit on a shelf—one with midi skirts, mostly wool but also a cord one my mother made me, and one with long-sleeved button-up shirts that I folded with my flip fold. The final missing piece is a big bin that had photo albums in it, including the one I made of my life so far when I was going to be an exchange student in high school, the ones I made there, the letter to and photos of the child I gave up for adoption when I was 18, the journal I kept while traveling around Europe after college, the album of pictures of my then-boyfriend’s first trip back to Africa after he’d left 17 years earlier, an album I began when I learned I was pregnant with my son, and many mementos and photos I’d tucked away over the years, intending to sort them into that album. All of that is gone.

The child’s birthday is Monday. I usually get forgetful and clumsy sometime around that day, then realize why, pull out the album, have a cry, and can move on. I’ve missed it the last few years, was looking forward to having it this time. There was also a form of info the dad filled out where, in the “anything else” space he wrote “the father loved the mother very much”. I moved my regular PT/workout session to his birthday this week, and have told the trainer it’s an emotional day, he should have me do restorative things, or maybe put me on the leg press that makes me feel like a champ.