Purge

Packing and moving can be a huge hassle, but one of the benefits of moving is that it gives you an opportunity to reevaluate everything you own. I mentioned in several posts that I own a lot of books and books happen to be things that I collect and have a difficult time getting rid of. But there are other things I've grown less attached to. It's only now that I'm forced to go through these things that I realize, one, that I actually still own them, and, two, that I don't really need them.

For whatever reason I still have a lot of clothes that I know don't fit me very well. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of clothes just don't fit in the shoulders and the back. Yet, I still have these clothes hanging in my closet and naturally I haven't worn them in years. What's the point of keeping them if I could at any minute rip through them like the Incredible Hulk? (Yes, I realize that many of you will laugh at that statement considering I'm 5'2" and 100 pounds, but still.) So those will go into a donation bag and maybe someone else can wear them.

I've also held on to a lot of things from my student days. I still have a hard time getting rid of papers and notes from class. Basically, anything that shows my actual hard work is something that I tend to keep. But over the years I've also collected copies and printouts of journal articles or chapters from books that I've used for research. These books and journals will always be around somewhere in some library, so there probably isn't a need for me to keep them. It's just a lot of wasted paper, wasted space, and added weight that I don't need right now. So I've gotten rid of all of these and dumped them into the recycling bin.

Even though I occasionally have a tendency to hold on to things that I think I might need someday or things I might have a sentimental attachment to, it feels really nice to get rid of things. It might be a cliche to say, but it's nice to get rid of the past when you're about to do something different or start something new. Even though I'm just moving downstairs, I might as well use it as an opportunity to clean out and start over, so to speak.