For the last 72 hours I’ve been on a tear, ripping through every room of my condo, weeding out the things that I have no intention of moving to Washington with me next month… and in the process, I believe I have broken the Theory of Relativity – there is no way that one person can have amassed this amount of crap in just one condo.

As I make my way through my place, I’m taking one room at a time. After making it to nearly everywhere – except for under my bed and bathroom cabinets – I can no longer park in my garage. It’s completely filled with a towering mountain of crap. And yes, it’s crap, but I have no proof that I brought it all into my condo. Honest – there’s no scientific explanation as to why I still have my high school graduation gown – I had to have thrown that out years ago. It’s been over a decade. It’s almost been one and a half, actually. So why is it still here?

Sentimental Baggage.

If a black hole can suck in all things – including light – then sentimental baggage is its antithesis. It makes things insidiously collect in the closets and hiding places of your house. You know it’s true. How many times have you gone to clean out a closet and you find something you haven’t seen in a while and go “awwww, well, I’ll keep it, it reminds me of [insert event/item/place here]”. I seem to remember doing that at one point in the past… I usually have a soft spot of sentimental stuff during my autumn cleaning; I don’t have as much during the spring for some reason.

It’s spring and it’s a spring like no other. I’ve chucked the lot. Windows programming books that focused on Windows 95? Seeya. Little trinkets from middle school? Gone. High school uniform? It’s good to know that I still fit in it (a little snug, but still) but it’s trashed. Gone. Gone! Gone! Gone! Gone! Gone!

It was simple. I’m keeping one small box of memorabilia per room, and even that’s under considerations. All things that have been held as “I might need this” is now usually junked. In fact, if I haven’t used it in the five years I’ve been here, it’s gone. That’s my advice to people: if you haven’t used it recently, you probably don’t need it, so why keep it? I’d put a one year limit on it, unless it’s paperwork… then, for tax reasons keep it for seven years. Everything else? I know for a fact that there were a couple of things that came with me from my parents’ house – through my sister’s place – 11 years ago. Done. Adiós. Eighty-six’d. Dumped.

On another note, I only realized it this morning: although my immediate family has bought houses/condo over the years, I’ll be the first person to sell a house since 1967…

And people say American roots don’t grow deep anymore – hah!