Categories: musings
Date: 04 October 2007 23:37:42
There's something about packing that makes me think. Or maybe its just getting late.. I'm not moving far, in fact only to the next room, but we have the builders coming to repair (in a 'it gets worse before it gets better' kind of repairing) the water damage next week. So since they're going to relieve me of one of my bedroom walls, I thought it wise to box everything up and get it out of the way of the brickdust.
But when you start to put everything you have into boxes, you suddenly realise the amount of stuff you have to put in boxes, and how many (many many many) boxes are needed. And you find, amongst the dust under the bed and in all those hard to reach corners, all the things that you put there once thinking 'I'll see if I need that', or 'I don't want to throw that away just yet'. I've heard people recently calling all this stuff clutter, and extolling the virtues of getting rid of it all, and living more minimally. Well, while I might admit I have a bit more stuff than I need, I'm never going to be a minimalist! But whats the distinction between the stuff you really should get rid of, and the things that are important enough to keep? I keep things like concert tickets, birthday cards from special people, pebbles I picked up at a time/place that I want to remember, prayers from a church service that touched me. Maybe this is hoarding, and during this lot of packing I've got rid of some things too. But these small things, which to anyone else might be worthless, tell the story of my life, the people who matter to me, and where I've been. And for that reason, I think I'll hang onto them a little longer.