Movin' on...over

So when I wrote my New Year's Eve post, I closed it with the line that I hoped "For 2012 to be a year of new beginnings and of joy, with opportunities that surprise even myself."

Well, color me surprised. I hardly imagined that within the month I'd be preparing to pack up my apartment. Now, I'm not moving to a new city or for a new job -- despite the fact that for years I said I wouldn't move unless I had a new job or new city to go to -- but into a new place about five minutes away from my current apartment, where I've lived for the past six years. And I only just got around to hanging that long-framed art on the wall two months ago. Go figure.

Anyway, my friend Pam told me her current housemate was moving out this month, and she asked me if I'd be interested in moving in. It took me several days to think about it and make a decision. See, I can talk a good game about being spontaneous, but I'm really a prototypical eldest child, with the need to be responsible and a propensity to over-think things. I have a serious lack of daring, generally, and like many (and not just eldest children, I imagine), both a desire for, and a fear of, change.

But at the same time, I realized that I've grown too comfortable. While the thought of packing and culling these next couple of weeks is more than just a little daunting, it needs to be done. I'm looking forward to being free of some of my stuff. Plus, I have this strange notion that if I don't make this smaller change now, I might be unwilling to make any sort of larger move in the future (worst cast scenario: 12 years from now, I'm still living in this apartment, crammed with even more stuff, and sharing the space with multiple cats...ok, maybe not the cats, but you get the idea).

Plus, moving will enable me to save significantly every month and, almost more importantly, I will never have to truck my dirty laundry to the laundromat (thereby avoiding being hit on by creepy men old enough to be my father) ever, ever again. It's the little things, really. 

Like any transition, there will be some things to get used to (it has, after all, been a good nine years since I've shared living space with anyone besides an immediate family member), but Pam and I get along really well, and I already have a key to the place (from occasionally dog-sitting her pooch, Trustee), so I can gradually take boxes over as I pack them, saving the big items for last (this is the plan, at any rate). I'm sure there will be some adjustments, but I've been saying for a while that I need to be organized and more neat as a general rule, which Pam most certainly is, so hopefully a little of that will rub off. She is also fully prepared for (and excited about) the onslaught of books I'll be bringing with me.

And it looks like, if nothing else, I'll be able to put a check mark next to my New Year's Resolution to "clean out my refrigerator" sooner rather than later. :-)

I'm going to be needing more of these!

Too much stuff

I have a confession to make.

I am a fourth generation pack rat. After my great-grandmother passed away in 2004 (at 109!), it was discovered that an upstairs room in her home (the rest of which, at least in my memory, was pretty spotlessly neat) was filled to the brim with old things, piles of clothes, old coffee tins (from the 20s and 30s) and who knows what else stuffed cheek-by-jowl into a tiny bedroom and its adjacent closet. Her eldest son, my grandfather, was also a saver, most likely as a result of the living through the Great Depression, holding on to things because they might, someday, have value or be of use to somebody. He was also a fixer, and, after he retired from the Navy, would often buy broken things (radios, drills, etc..) at the PX and fix them, then give them away. Most of the excess stuff was relegated to the attic or a large barn he built in their second back yard, but it was still there.

Naturally, my father inherited it from him. Because my grandparents died tragically, my dad tends to hold on to things that were theirs, regardless of the fact that certain items are beyond useless (a 1960s behemoth of an adding machine that must weigh at least 20 pounds, for example, and rightly belongs in a museum). My mother has to practically sneak bags of donations out of the house, because he'll go through them, saying "someone can use/wear this," despite the fact that no one has worn it in 10-odd years or it's been gathering dust. But he's getting better. Recently, we cleaned out a storage unit filled with things from my grandparent's house. Over half the contents were donated or thrown away. Progress.

While I'm far from being a hoarder, I also have the tendency to hold on to things, mostly because they have sentimental value. At the same time, I realize things are not people and that memories can serve. Looking for a certain notebook this morning with the eye to writing a completely different blog post, I realized I'd gone through several different drawers without being able to find it (I still don't know where it's wandered off to), and that most of the things in those drawers were completely useless (a reporter's notebook filled with meeting notes from 2005, old copies of Magnificat that are three years old, back issues of magazines that could easily be recycled, cassette tapes from the early 90s --"Rattle and Hum," anyone?) and need to be tossed or donated posthaste. I also have far more dishes and flatware than a single woman really requires.

And I'll admit I'm not the most organized of girls, but have I aspirations. :) I long for a clutter-free home, and make a concerted effort to donate items several times a year. A move would be the ideal way to cull junk I've accumulated over the nearly six years I've been in my apartment, but that doesn't seem in the cards right now. My brother, Daniel, who moved across country to Oregon about five years ago, took only several large suitcases with him when he left, and is scrupulous about keeping too many things out of his house that don't serve a purpose by being there. He's proof that the pack-rat gene can be conquered, and it gives me hope. :)

I read in a magazine not too long ago that a good exercise one family used when they realized they had too much stuff was to play a game they called "We're moving to Europe." The idea being, rather obviously, to imagine that you're making a transatlantic move and can only take so much with you, making getting rid of dead weight imperative. Perhaps it's something I should try.