Gone but Not Forgotten

So more items were victim of Goodwill bound this weekend.

Everything takes on a different meaning when I know that my entire life has to fit in the bed of a Dodge Ram (extended bed, thank God!). Fabulous shoes that have remained in boxes for the last three years, never worn, are suddenly not so fabulous. Formal dresses that have been worn once, but have lived on in a plastic covering on a hanger in the closet are bound to find new life hanging on a used clothing rack somewhere. Are electric egg poachers really that desirable? Plastic cups I thought would come in handy for picnics, or parties (both never happened) will eventually end up in a landfill somewhere contributing to global waste.

There was an odd feeling on Saturday as I went through a few more things giving the thumbs up or thumbs down approach. I remember when I received certain kitchen items, when I bought the dresses and how I thought my whole dating life would change with the purchase of said fabulous shoes.

Once all desireable items, no longer had a place in my life. A little nostalgia washed over me and before when this emotion hit I eventually chose to hang on with the presumption that maybe I would need them someday. So to finally make the decision that someday would never come was a little bittersweet.

I realize that I'm lamenting on emotional attachments to material items. I guess that makes me a material girl of sorts. But I don't think it's necessarily a terrible thing to have an emotional bond with a dress or with shoes, to have an emotional anything is better than having an emotional nothing.

But there is a certain weightless feeling in knowing that I'm cleaning out my life. It's nice to know that I'm not bogged down somewhere. That I can pack up my life and move it to another state.

Inventory

There really is no better way to take inventory on your life than to move.
Things shoved to the back of the closet, stuffed out in a shed and pushed underneath the bed need to be taken in to account when moving.
I've just starting chipping away to make things simpler. And by simpler I mean, throwing away (or recycling). Last night I went through an entire box that held notes taken in Speech 101, Writing 101 and a history class taken at Highline. At one point I figured I would need these again, but I sat there for about two minutes trying to time travel back to that thought process. It took me one second to decide that I didn't need the notes I had saved for five years.
There was also a turning point for me. I decided that I no longer needed CD cases. All CDs are now in a giant booklet for safe keeping and all cases are sitting in my trash can. I figured instead of two giant boxes full of CDs, some that I haven't listened to in years, put them in one easy to move booklet.
I justified this by noting that most people these days burn all their music on to a computer and store them on an iPod. Not having a decent computer for this, or a decent iPod, the CD booklet seems the best route. Plus I still have a nostalgia for CDs, even though most of them are scratched and it's a gamble which ones won't skip.
All cassette tapes have been thrown out.
R.I.P. mix tapes.