Thinking Out of the Box

I'm just a few short days away from officially being a homeowner, and less than two weeks from moving into my new condo, so I figure it's high time I made a real dent in my packing. But first, some purging. Lots and lots of purging. It'll definitely help the cause if I have less to pack. The biggest dent was made in my book collection, which, after six years of living in one place, had swelled to ridiculous proportions. I'm lucky in that I get a lot of free stuff sent to me at work, but I'm also a sucker because over the past 6.5 years I've brought much of it home. Today I'm happy to report that most of it has gone right back from whence it came. I packed up two boxes of books — travel books, advance copies of best-sellers, random books I thought were funny, a couple cookbooks, a couple books I'd started reading but will likely never finish, a duplicate copy of a book I must have bought twice, other books I'd read and will never look at again, and one book I had purchased and actually had signed (to me) by the author — and Sunday I dropped them off at the office for some lucky souls to take home. Their problem now, not mine. The funny thing about it, I suppose, is that of all the books I brought in (and there were plenty, as you can see), I had actually bought maybe 5, but no more than 10, of them. So clearly, I need to learn restraint whenever I get something in the mail.

Of course, I still have plenty of books and stuff left on my bookshelves, but the point is, I have less of it now. Far less than what I had. My shelves were overflowing and there were multiple stacks of books on my floors, just collecting dust. So goodbye to unneeded clutter. Same goes for my magazine collection. This weekend I filled up four garbage bags of old magazines and dumped 'em. I did what were likely my last two loads of laundry in my building on Sunday night and instead of washing some old t-shirts, I just threw them away. I did the same with some discolored glasses and old bowls I hadn't used in three years. After all, I already had new glasses from my recent trip to IKEA (unopened, I might add), so that's one less thing I have to pack.

Point is, I'm being productive here, even if there aren't so many boxes actually packed. I really can't wait to move, and not just because of my instrument-playing neighbors. It's very exciting to close a chapter in your life both symbolically and literally — when you get rid of stuff you've owned for too long — and while packing up to move is definitely a chore, I can say I'm enjoying this part of the process.