Getting rid of "stuff"

I'm doing a lot of spring cleaning right now. I'm not sure if it's related to recent events, but I'm getting rid of a lot of excess in my house. Although my house seems not that "full" at first glance, our basement storage room is packed with things that I've been saving - many for sentimental reasons, other things not. I've already done two car load donation trips to the Value Village of excess, which felt great.

My family has two types of organizers. My grandmother was a hoarder and my other grandmother kept very little. Both styles of organization have their impacts - one parent reflects on having wished that more was saved from their childhood, and the other parent struggled with seeing a parent with issues of letting go of things.

Is there a happy inbetween? I'm looking at my storage room and it feels like a huge weight. Certain things like my diary's from my childhood. I'm reading through them with total embarassment. I would mortified if Oscar (or Aubrey!) read certain things. I read a few pages to Aubrey one night and we were in tears laughing at how dramatic everything was back then. It read as a soap opera. Certain pages were not read out loud. Yikes. And now as a parent, I want to save things from Oscar's youth. Between my stuff, and his, I have little room.

I'm thinking of scanning in certain things and turning it into a photobook. So I have memories, but I don't have boxes, upon boxes sitting taking up space. Anyone else struggle with it? You know - the stuff behind the scenes that you want to keep, but wonder how to?