This Is Your Life

This move, I've made the wise decision to purge. My philosophy runs something like this: the more I recycle/donate/throw out, the less I have to move and find a place for next weekend. It is kind of like my own personal episode of Clean House on Style Network, except there's no Miss Niecy and really it's more like Clean Storage Closet (while the rest of the house becomes a disaster).

This act of purging has been a visit to my former selves. Days of sorting through old letters, journals, birthday cards, arrow-folded high school notes, concert and musical programs, essays and tests and pictures--the stuff my life is made of--have blown on the embers of the past, firing my memory. It is interesting, visiting your life. The feelings of it all, nostalgia and gratitude spread wild and running across the living room floor. The angst-ridden residue of each letter's subject like a smooth burn scar inside me I like to run my finger over every now and again. I keep coming back to this thought: I've lived a good life. So far.

Purging has been a concrete lesson in that which matters most: material things I once thought I needed are hastily discarded, forgotten. But the sentimental pieces of my life still feel critical, my life's scaffolding, without which I might crumble. Value, when attached to all this sentiment, has become something entirely new. With the excavation of my life's artifacts, I'm realizing my own definitions of need and want.

I challenge you, look in your old boxes, in storage. See what you can rid yourself of, see what you cannot do without. You'd be amazed what it might teach you.