Yesterday morning I rolled out of bed, bought out the box supply of the UPS store across the street, and in the next 24 hours transformed my apartment from this:
Into this:
During college I prided myself on being able to move the entirety of my belongings in a single trip in a min-van (thanks, Lady!). Those of you who remember what my apartment looked like before probably suspect that I'm a bit beyond the mini-van stage (and you're right), but I'm happy to report that I'm still pretty lean. All my possessions (except the furniture and some toiletries) condense pretty nicely into a manageable stack of boxes:
Which reminds me of my first Christmas in this apartment: I invited a friend over for Christmas Eve dinner, and she asked me where all my "junk" was. You know, all the stuff and clutter that people have. To which I responded that I didn't have any. She was skeptical at first, and then suspected me of some snobby aesthetic or a mania for tidiness that might approach OCD (and, frankly, she probably wasn't that far off the mark). But, really, it's because of all those years of moving as a kid and hearing my parents say: "Are you going to want to move that? If not, get rid of it!" Now that phrase runs through my mind, like a mantra, pretty much all the time -- to the point that throwing stuff away is just as therapeutic as cleaning (another shout-out to you, Lady!).
Funny, though, how one's perspective changes depending on how far into the packing process one is... A few months ago I thought certain items definitely made the cut. Yesterday morning, some of them did, but some of them didn't. And then by about 5pm this afternoon, I was ready to torch everything that wasn't already in a box.
Good thing I started with the important stuff.
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