Since moving back to Hawaiʻi, we've kept a storage POD. What began as a practical solution slowly became a monthly reminder that we were still holding onto more than we needed. Recently, we decided it was time to sort through it — reduce it, simplify it, and lower the cost.

Opening old boxes is always an odd experience. Some things make perfect sense. Others leave you wondering why they survived the last decade. It's a quiet confrontation with earlier versions of ourselves — who we were, what we thought we needed, what we believed would matter.

A good portion of what we packed away years ago was books. Many, many boxes of books. They are expensive to move, heavy to store, and take up more space than we care to admit. If you were building a case for digital reading, this would be your moment.

As we began sorting, it became reflective. Some books were easy to let go. Others pulled us into memory. We found ourselves looking at margin notes, folded corners, and old receipts tucked between pages — small evidence of who we were when we first read them.

Separating the wheat from the chaff wasn't dramatic, but it wasn't effortless either. We each worked through our own stacks, deciding what still belonged with us and what didn't. There was something steady about doing it side by side — a shared understanding that some weight is worth carrying, and some isn't.

There will be less on the shelves, but there will still be books — just chosen more carefully.

In a world that increasingly favors efficiency and portability, we don't pretend physical books are the practical choice. They take up space. They're heavy. They demand room.

And yet, we're still keeping them.

Maybe it's not about sentiment or nostalgia. Maybe it’s about presence — holding something tangible in a time when so much else feels fleeting.

Books take up space. For now, we're still willing to make space for them.