I don’t like going through my possessions. It’s like a slow steady torture. Gathering and sorting, each item evaluated for worth and placed in a pile. There are only three answers, keep, donate, or toss, but the questions are endless. Are you good enough to keep? I only need one; maybe this one is better? Could someone else use this? What is this? Why the hell do I have this piece of crap? It’s a game of decisions and choices that I don’t like to play.
But play I did. While others were still coming down from their turkey and pumpkin pie fix, I was in what used to be my bedroom, now junk holder until we get the closets done, going through the boxes of crap that have been accumulating for the last thirteen years. I shredded until the shredder started smoking, and I filled huge Rubbermaid crates full of stuff for Goodwill and I tossed out trash bags full of former treasures that are now landfill filler. It was painful, but in a good way.
Over the weekend I slowly worked my through the weird fashions and poor decorating choices of my early adulthood. Then the nursing bras, childproofing devices, and ready to assemble furniture of early motherhood came under attack. I tossed and donated my way through the first three years of homeschooling. When I got done there was still a lot of crap. A whole lot of crap. I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day.
To Be Continued
November 29th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I understand the concept of accumulating crap in the home. I don’t get how it actually happens, but piles of random stuff appear from nowhere and somehow merge into huge lumps of junk. Okay, I’ve had this fantasy of creating funeral pyres of crap in my yard to ceremonially burn. Yeah, I realize it’s over the top and not environmentally sound, but it would be cathartic.
What do you think? Would there be something that you would want to do with your crap? You mentioned Rome, and I got this picture of “Rome Burning.” If you played violin, you could torch the stuff in your yard and “fiddle as Rome burns…”
November 30th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I’m afraid of my collection. I just move it and avoid eye contact.
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
SamokDaddy - I’ve often fanticized about dumping my house upside down and starting over. I might do a post about burning rome as a building rome intermission.
Whit - Thats a good move. I think acknowledging it makes it stronger.