Throwing my life away

We are at moving day in 30 days. As the countdown continues, we stand transfixed in our steps with waves of emotion sweeping over us. How did we get here? How in the world are we ever going to do this? There are far more boxes than there is storage space. We rented two storage units and we bought a Tuff Shed for the back yard, and still there is not nearly enough room.

Our thinking simply must be shifted to throw away mode. We are not used to that. For the past 25 years we have been in "save it we might have use for it someday" mode. That makes for an incredible number of boxes and bins. One entire storage unit is choked with Christmas stuff. Another is piled high with my library. It is painful for me to throw away any book. It is hard to realize that I haven't enough years left to use all these books, let alone read many of them. But of course my excuse is that most of them are reference type books which I use to look up something and then return it to the shelf.

Then there is the good junk category. Toys that we have kept so long that they are entering the antique category. We could sell them on eBay, I suppose, but will we? I keep threatening to buy a used circus tent and set it up in the back yard of our new residence to stack all the stuff that will not fit elsewhere. I'm not so sure that it is a joke any more.

The truly difficult part of this whole ordeal is that this downsizing requires us to throw away parts of our lives. I remember when we were holding a yard sale of my father-in-law's trinkets. The man wept because he saw his life being sold for nickels and dimes. Mine is being given away. Seminary families, women's shelter, Goodwill and friends all have been recipients of some of our life gadgets. I'm sure there are more books waiting for my study to be set up than I will have shelf space to store them. I must prune the library and toss the excess. That will hurt. More and more of my life that is on hold in storage will actually have to be jettisoned, and that is painful. If we had a big fire I suppose it would save a little time, and I would hope to adopt the attitude that "it's only stuff". Just right this moment, however, we are in pain.