Packrat Penance

I realize now that I have suffered from “Just-in-case” syndrome, as well as Time-Induced Pack-Rat syndrome. Over the years, I have saved various things just in case I need them, some because of sentimental value, and the majority because I haven’t had the time or inclination to sort through it all and cull a major percentage. Well, these bad habits have caught up with me and now I am paying the price for being a pack-rat. It feels rather like paying penance, or going into rehab, as I go through so much old stuff and random pieces of my life that I will most certainly be cured by the end of the exercise.
It is amazing how much junk (swear-word diluted) has been hidden in the corners and dark places of this little house. I have found not only boxes of textbooks, notebooks, memorabilia, and unnecessary stuff from college, but things that found their way here when my parents visited –bringing with them childhood articles of mine that they had cleaned out of their house. After a week of sorting through time capsules in the bedroom, bathroom, and half of the living room, I found yet more surprises awaiting me in the laundry room when I opened a storage tub that I thought was empty. I want to scream, cry, and use every swear word I know, but I’d feel guilty afterwards and the neighbors would probably call the police, too. So instead I write about it, so that I can laugh it off (eventually) and get back to it all again tomorrow. Ugh.
Disposing of unwanted things is another headache in the making. What can be recycled? What needs to go to the dump? What can be saved for yard-sale? What can I give to thrift stores? Who will take my furniture? Hmm…I thought this pile would all fit in that box… I hope I can keep these… Here I am, with slightly less than two weeks before the Big Move and I feel the desperation of impending failure –what if I’m not done in time, what if I can’t get everything to fit in my car? And then the emotional ship rocks back toward optimism –if I keep this pace of progress, success is imminent. After all, I am already living out of a suitcase, eating with plastic silverware, and have most of my books in boxes. I got a lot done today, but it still feels like time flies when I need more of it –and right now, it is looking back at me in its dust and laughing.
It sure would be nice to have some help; sometimes living alone really bites, right now especially. I just spent a day (alone) reliving memories found in boxes, getting grossed out by spiders, recycling mountains of paper, and listening to the radio while I sorted more. I found bittersweet reminders of childhood worth keeping, poetry and writing embarrassing to behold (and thus into the garbage it goes), piles of receipts and old bills, and notebooks full of materials from student-teaching that give rise to memories I’m not sure I want. I feel like I have been time traveling through pieces of my life with every box I pack.
This penance is giving me the chance to think hard about what I should keep and why, and what I will not keep in the future! Believe it or not I prefer to be organized, and this is my chance to make my stuff manageable. I don’t want to feel this overwhelmed ever again. I am learning to be merciless and discriminating through this process, and hope that this penitential pack-rat can be reformed and sin no more!