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April 23, 2006

Sunday Night

I'll keep this short, because the good stuff is below. The final push took some doing (and some frantic machinations while Bob and Robbi were taking naps on Saturday afternoon). Bob, in all his wisdom, is somewhat plodding when it comes to making decisions, espeically about the fate of ancient treasures. And I can sympathize with agonizing over whether to send an old tire rim to the dump or to the auction after having given it shelter for the better part of three decades. I sympathize because I have the same problem when it comes to things.

We noticed this weekend that the space seemed smaller when empty. Somehow the clutter had created a sense of endless expanse. Pacing out the dimensions of my new home, I realized that we would have to get rid of more pieces of furniture than we had originally imagined. And of more of the "things" that fill in the spaces.

In recent weeks I have been making bold proclamations to Robbi about how I am going to "throw it all away" when the time comes to move. Those who know me well (my poor father has had to suffer storing the boxes of childhood legos, playmobil, and star wars figurines I have been unwilling to part with all these years) will be surprised by this attitude. Has he turned a new leaf, they might be asking? Alas, I know that when the time comes to make the hard decisions about my lifetime of accumulated belongings, I will break down in sheer panic at the idea of parting with a single treasure. All of them are tied to memories. I'm so bad at remembering, I need these physical anchors.

But the limits of space will impose a discipline. I'll just need to take a nap one afternoon and have Robbi and Bob make the hard decisions for me. I'll wake up in the aftermath and look at my newly pruned existence. It's a liberating thought.

Posted by bogenamp at April 23, 2006 10:49 PM