I am the worst at gifts. Truly, historically bad.
Last year, for my mom’s birthday, I gave her a gift card to a restaurant that had closed down six months earlier. I kid you not. I’d bought the thing in a panic, and then it sat in my junk drawer for so long I forgot about it until I was wrapping it.
I’m not proud of this. It’s just the truth.
My “Aha!” Moment: From Head-Space to Storage Space
My brain doesn’t work on a schedule. Birthdays, holidays, they sneak up on me like a ninja. I’d have these great ideas in March for a Christmas gift, but by December, the idea was long gone, replaced by the cold sweat of “Oh crap, I need something NOW.”
I was complaining about this to my aunt, who is the kind of person who has her Christmas shopping done by July. She looked at me and said, “Honey, your problem is you’re trying to store gifts in your head. You need to store them in an actual place.”
I sighed. “I don’t have room; my apartment is a disaster.”
She just shrugged. “So rent a room.”
And that’s how I ended up with a 5×5 storage unit at Bristol VA Self Storage.
I remember the day I got the key. I walked into this empty, concrete box and thought, “Well, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.” It smelled like dust and quiet. I felt like a crazy person. What was I going to put in here? A few sad presents? It felt so extra.
But I was desperate. So I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest wire shelf they had and a few of those big plastic totes. I am not a handy person; it took me 45 minutes to put that stupid shelf together, and I almost pinched my finger off.
My Genius, No-Fuss System
I didn’t have a fancy system. I just wrote on the totes with a black marker:
- MOM.
- DAD & BROTHER.
- FRIENDS.
- WRAPPING STUFF.
And then… I started. The next time I was at a bookstore and saw a novel I knew my friend would love, I bought it. Instead of tossing it on my kitchen counter where it would get buried under mail, I drove to my unit. I put it in the “FRIENDS” tote. It felt… oddly powerful.
A month later, I saw a cool vintage ashtray at a flea market. My dad doesn’t smoke, but he uses them for loose change and guitar picks. It was two dollars. I bought it and put it in “DAD & BROTHER.”
This became my thing. I wasn’t shopping under pressure anymore. I was just… collecting. I was picking up little pieces of people I love when I saw them. It turned gift-giving from a horrible chore into a quiet, private game.
The real test came a few months in. My coworker, who loves yoga, suddenly announced she was leaving. The party was the next day. The old me would have panicked and thrown money at a generic group gift.
The new me?
I drove to my unit after work. I went to the “FRIENDS” tote. A few weeks prior, I’d found a beautiful, handmade ceramic mug with little lotus flowers on it. I’d bought it thinking, “Someone will love this.” I grabbed it, along with a gift bag and tissue paper from my “WRAPPING STUFF” tote. I wrapped it right there, standing in the quiet of my unit.
The next day, when she opened it, she got teary-eyed. She said it was the most thoughtful gift she’d gotten. She couldn’t believe I’d found something so “her” on such short notice.
I just smiled. I didn’t tell her my secret. I didn’t tell her that the key to being thoughtful was actually just having a rented concrete box where I could be forgetful on my own time.
Final Thought
That little unit at Bristol VA Self Storage isn’t for my old junk. It’s for a better version of me. It’s the organized, thoughtful, prepared person I always wanted to be, housed in a 5×5 space. It’s the best ten bucks I spend every month.
If you’re like me—if you’re constantly late, constantly stressed, and constantly feeling guilty about gifts—stop trying to change your brain. Just get a little more space for it to breathe. It sounds silly, but it saved me.
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