Reformed Pack-Rat
Last weekend I got a wild hair up my butt to clean out the closet in our home office. Feeling the need to start purging and packing for our move to Oregon in June, I figured the office would be a good place to start. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least.
One of the first things that I realized is that I’m a pack-rat. Yeah, I knew that I tend to be a “piler” who has little mounds of papers and random crap on pretty much any flat surface in our house. But going through the boxes in our office that had never been opened since the last time we moved in 2005, I found that I also tend to keep everything–I mean EVERYTHING! I found old cards given to me by friends 10 years ago, concert ticket stubs from 1993, and pens, post-it pads and mini-flashlights from title agencies and home inspection companies that I picked up at a real estate conference in 2004. I also found old airline ticket stubs from my travels with my cousin Jason, newsletters from schools I used to teach at, and matches from restaurants and bars around the country. I even found an old box of Valentine’s Day conversation hearts candies. Yes, I keep everything.
The second thing that I realized is that I have a really hard time letting go of these little mementos from my past. It was surprising to me the intense sadness that came over me as I ripped up up old checks with my maiden name on them. And it nearly broke my heart to throw away old mailing return labels with the address of my old single-girl pad, my condo in west Mesa. It was like I was breaking up with my best friend. Saying good-bye to the girl who I had once been was more difficult than I had ever imagined.
So now have a huge hill of “trash” sitting in the middle of our office until we can get it all thrown away over the next couple of weeks of trash pick-up. Although it makes me a bit melancholy to see that pile, I’m glad that I had a chance to sit down and sort through it all last Sunday. It was nice to reminisce a bit, tell Matt stories about the girl I had once been and to say good-bye to all of the material items that I felt compelled to keep all this time in order to stay connected. Although they’re gone, I still have the memories to keep. And those will be a lot easier to move to Oregon than 25 boxes filled with useless trinkets.