Moving is a painful experience. It’s messy. It throws your life into chaos and disorder. I moved last weekend, and even though my new apartment is only about a mile away, for about three days it felt like I was running a marathon.
“You’re easy to move,” a member of my little moving crew said, and I suppose I am. I pack quickly, I get everything organized in advance, I have a clear sense of what needs to be done and I get it done. We did two U-Haul trips in under three hours, followed by celebratory beers on my new back patio. I boxed the kitchen up later and drove it to the new place in my car, and moved my desk and computer the following night.
It was an easy move, as moves go, but the whole ordeal wiped me out. When a friend called looking for a sympathetic ear, I lamely told her that a situation that was causing her to re-evaluate whether or not she is a good person just didn’t sound like that big a deal and why didn’t she talk to her husband about it? She accused me of being a bad listener and failing to take her seriously, and all I could say in my defense was, “I’m physically and mentally exhausted.” And I was.
But there was one thing about moving that was good, even cleansing. My new apartment is a bit smaller than the old place, and I found myself going through boxes of mementoes and trinkets, carefully assessing what to do with all of my furniture, and combing through drawers and closets. For the first time in years, I found myself really thinking about my stuff and why I have it. For instance, I was sad when I realized that I’d never be able to fit both of my Laz-E-Boy chairs in the new place; maybe, I thought, the new place is too small. But then I remembered how I came to possess those chairs in the first place: A colleague at my first job was getting rid of them, and gave them to me for free. This realization was almost liberating; it allowed me to begin questioning my attachment to my stuff. Why these chairs, and not some other chairs? Did I really want to drag around the Laz-E-Boy chairs Pat Rupinski bestowed upon me for the rest of my life?
I decided to keep one Laz-E-Boy chair and put the other one out with the trash. I decided my nice kitchen table could go into storage in my parents’ attic. (“Where will you eat dinner?” my poor mother wondered. “Mom,” I said, “I never actually eat at the table.”) I gave away my living room carpet. I placed the ironing board out on the curb. Deciding to get rid of this stuff was kind of exciting and fun, and on Monday night, when I left my apartment for the last time, I couldn’t help but marvel at the huge pile of trash on the sidewalk.
I’m not someone who has ever really cared about de-cluttering. I happen to like my clutter. But I had to admit that a little bit of de-cluttering feels kind of good. I mean, it’s not like most of my stuff is that great. The bulk of it came from other people, or, like my ironing board and TV stand, was salvaged from a pile of trash. The only reason I was ever attached to this stuff is because it’s ... my stuff.
Most interesting of all was going through the cardboard boxes in my closet containing Sara Foss memorabilia. I hadn’t opened these boxes in years; I couldn’t even remember what they contained. Turns out, a lot of stuff I could toss in the trash. Like my collection of name tag buttons from the summer camp I worked at during college. Sometimes campers who really liked you would give you their name tag button before they went home, and in one box I found a small pile of them. I studied these buttons. My recall of names and faces is pretty good, and I remembered all of these kids. I gave it some thought. I was glad I had touched the lives of these children, most of whom are in college or graduated by now, but did I really need to lug these buttons around for the rest of my life? The answer was obvious, and I began tossing them into a garbage bag, though I did save the button given to me by my favorite camper ever. “The hardest thing is deciding to get rid of stuff like that,” a friend informed me. “Once it’s gone, you’ll never miss it.”
Maybe so, but there were plenty of things I just couldn’t part with. Like the pins I received for regularly attending Sunday school. A plaque commemorating my service as opinion editor of the Lebanon High School Times circa 1993-1994. (This plaque is now sitting on my desk at work.) A wooden sign, stolen out of a barn at camp, that says, “He who is too busy for God is too busy.” My varsity letter jacket for soccer.
I know I’ll never need these things. I don’t need a handmade Christmas ornament that says “Quarter Beers 1997” or my sixth-grade social studies project for loony Mr. Sneed. I’m sure I’ll forget all about these things, that my box of memorabilia will get buried in the closet and forgotten, but it’s worth keeping around so that one day I can rediscover it and laugh at all the goofy memories it conjures up when I go through the contents. Maybe in 10 years I’ll be ready to get rid of some more of this stuff, but not now. I mean, the cartoons I drew in eighth grade are just way too valuable to toss aside like a piece of garbage.
Got stuff? What is it? What weird old trinket is it impossible to part with?
