August 16, 2006
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Moving involves discarding. When you live in one place for a couple years, it's easy to acquire items, and it doesn't cost you much to keep them. My apartment is somewhat small, but I've got plenty of closet space to fill with new things which means that I never have to make difficult decisions about throwing out old things to acquire (and have the space to store) new things. When you move, you have to incur affirmative costs to keep all the things you've acquired. If I want to take all this crap to the new place, I've got to box it all up, carry it up and down stairs, etc., and if I don't really "need" it, the better thing to do is to get rid of it.
Deciding what I "need" is difficult though. The universe of things I "need" includes not only things I use on a daily basis, but things that have sentimental value. When is it time to say "enough," ignore sentiment, and stop hoarding useless things?
As I look through my closet, I have many terribly designed sweaters or shirts, all of which were gifts from one family member or another at some Christmas past. I feel awful giving the sweater my Grandma gave me three years ago to Goodwill, even though I've never worn it once and knew I would never wear it the second I opened the box. What purpose does keeping it serve, though, other than making me not feel bad about something that I probably shouldn't feel bad about?
Then there's the 16 printed issues of the UCLA Law Review sitting on my shelf. Being on Law Review meant a lot to me; I learned a lot about myself and legal scholarship. But everything in those printed copies is available on Lexis or Westlaw except the Masthead that says my name under "Articles Editors." And I know that I was on law review, so why do I need 16 issues that tell me that I was. On the other hand, maybe one day I will want to look back at them, and considering that I've already hauled 10 tons of books to my new place, what's another 16 fairly light-weight, small, journal issues.
I also have an inordinate number of religious objects that I've had since I was a child. Pictures of the Virgin Mary; rosaries; crucifixes; plastic nativity sets. I don't want to actively get rid of these things, even though I'm less religious nowadays, but it does seem silly to store most of them somewhere in the closet in most of the places I've lived. On the other hand, what do I do with them? I have 6 rosaries. There's only 1 that I want to keep (because it was blessed by the Pope and my Grandma gave it to me and it's really nice); the rest are kind've cheap ones they handed out at Sunday School from time to time. But what do I do with these things I don't want? Should I go to my local parish and surrender them to a priest? I mean, I can't very well throw out a rosary! or a picture of Mary! It seems like you're really tempting fate if you do that. So I keep hauling them with me from place to place.
There's certain old things that I feel obligated to hang on too just because I've had them for so long. I still have the pencil box that I had in first grade. It's this huge thing, and I don't keep anything of use in there. But it has my handwriting on the cover from first grade (I wrote my name and teacher). Even though it serves no use and I wouldn't really miss it, it seems like when something has stayed with me for so long I should continue to keep it.
All this reinforces thoughts I've been having about moving being a recreation (or preservation) of self. Especially this move. I didn't really pick San Diego, but I did pick my new place. I'm picking what I take there. I'm picking what I buy when I get there -- clothes, furniture. This is a very object-oriented view of self. It's about judging the outside to infer what on the inside, about me changing what's on the outside to reflect a different inside, or to lead my inside to a new place. On one view, that's a superficial approach. I don't think it's as superficial as it might initially appear.
Comments (2)
I hate moving. Thinking about a possible move I could be making in another year, I've already started looking around my room, deciding what I would throw away. I think I've gotten a little merciless, though. Maybe I get that from my dad, he loves to throw things away
I've moved 4 times within the last 4 years and I'm moving a 5th time within a few weeks. It can be a draining event, not just physically but mentally as well. I "had" to get rid of tons of things every time I moved and sometimes regret comes back to haunt me for those actions. Most of the time I know it's the right decision and it can be liberating. My advice? Get rid of the sweater but keep the rosary. The rosary has value because it's a symbol of your childhood, blessed by someone of importance, and given to you by a loved one that you want to keep in your memories. Like you said, the sweater serves no other purpose than to make you feel guilty if you got rid of it. Keep the journals too. You might want to use them to impress someone, maybe your children, in the future. Good luck!
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