Purging

Oh, moving time, that glorious time (or two or three) of year when I take stock of my possessions, organize my clutter, and purge myself of anything and everything I don't need or am not emotionally attached to. Luckily I move often enough that I really don't accumulate much clutter.

But this time, it's a lot of emotional purging.

Over the years I've gathered a variety of trinkets, notes, photos, souvenirs, and mementos related to my relationships. And, for the most part, I'm not bringing any of it with me to my new apartment. I've shredded love letters, trashed photographs, recycled bottles and reinvented objects so they don't belong to that part of my life anymore. I always feel so cleansed when I do this before a move, and purging my relationship past is even more cleansing.

So begins the portion of my life where I start to understand what being an adult means to myself and to my fellow people. Doing this unattached to another person will aid the process tremendously. This is the part where I find out who I am, what I'm doing and where I'm going. Then if someone wants to come along for the ride I'll be able to tell him all those things.

And so I say goodbye to pictures of my overly insecure boyfriend at prom, goodbye to that bottle of Billecart Salmon champagne (which was guaranteed to get you laid), goodbye to dozens of notes and love letters, and goodbye even to my keepsake heart boxes from Valentine's day. Most things were conveniently picked up by the trash collector this morning, ensuring I'll never see them again.

What I am keeping, however, are the photo albums I worked so hard on for months at a time, my custom Jones Soda bottle, my Chinese take-out purse, and my wood box, in which I'll keep old film strips. These objects are either too much my own or have too little sentimental value attached to those relationships to justify tossing. Or they're just pretty. Pretty things get to stay.