Me 2005

The blisters are starting to heal from the race this past weekend. I can feel my hips returning to normal, not pain free but normal. My lack of blogging this week is due to the fact I am moving, only five miles but still moving. Moving to me might be one of the hardest things in the world. However, I am finding the bright side of this experience, purging.

Just as a note to readers, a little over four years ago due to some downsizing at my previous job. I was forced to pack up and move out of a townhouse I had lived in for over three years at the previous school I worked. It was a trying time and when I moved into my current location, I lost having my own kitchen. For the past four or so years my kitchen and many items in my living room have been in storage at my parents. I was almost twenty-five at the time and now also twenty-nine. At that time the move was filled with drama and felt very traumatic, it took my mother packing to make the final push to move out. I had thirty days to pack up my life, find a new job, and start the next chapter.

Yesterday, I began to unpack those boxes that had been long forgotten in the shed.Moving in and of itself is an experience. Moving and opening boxes for the first time in years brings it to another level. As I unpacked box after box, I met an old version of myself. I was reconnected with my younger self and looked at all the things I held so dear to me. My gut reaction gazing at this stuff with older eyes, I couldn’t believe how much crap I had. Immediately over half of what I unpacked went right back into boxes to head out the door.

The sentimental value of certain items was gone. Did I really need over a dozen coffee mugs, those shot glasses with my college name on them, really what do I need those for anyway these days. I barely drink anymore and certainly not shots. I must have unpacked over twenty glasses. The wine glasses I picked up in Napa Valley almost got to stay. As I went through each item, many I had forgotten completely about it reminded me of my earlier self and how much difference a few years in your twenties really makes. Each piece held a memory of a past life and past memory. But isn’t that what moving really does, give us a chance to stroll down memory lane simultaneously deciding each possessions current value.

As I dropped the boxes off at the Salvation Army, I had a few bangs of sadness leaving behind much of my post-college self. However, that was a girls things a young adults attempt at being an adult. Most of it just seemed distant to me. As I drove away and headed to the screen printers and the gym, I reconnected with my current self leaving the past in the past and moving forward into the future.

It’s always a challenge to let go of our past, especially our possessions. They can hold such a firm grip on us we are afraid of letting them go. However, the only way to make room for the future adventures is to open up some shelf space, physically and mentally to make room for the new. I think at this point the salvation army may stop accepting my donations, I am there about once a week unloading more stuff on them. Hopefully it finds a new happy family and those people receive the same enjoyment I once did. Now back to purging more stuff and packing up the rest. Hope to have this move done in the next couple of days and get back to life as regularly scheduled.