The goal for moving this Thursday was to get rid of 50% of everything I own as the first step in my "100 things" stuff diet. I am proud to say that as of 10 pm this evening, we are mission accomplished. To do this, I separated everything I own into 2 piles- keep and don't keep. Each item I kept meant that something else became a sacrificial offering. Of course, early on it was easy. A pair of socks cost me a bottle of nail polish. A new pair of flats cost me 1 jar of my seashell collection. While effective, the process became increasingly difficult (pretty quickly I might add). My 10 X 10 on Architecture book cost me my Lucky jeans. Now, I have other jeans. Several other pairs of jeans. This is significant because these jeans are a size 27 and I've kept them through every move since I bought them in my last year of high school. Every woman owns a pair of "skinny jeans," and letting go of them is making the admission, "I will never be this thin again." Well actually, thats hyperbolic, "I won't be thin enough in the near future to validate the drawer space these take up." While difficult, I felt fine about the decision within the hour. No really, I did, because somewhere around 6pm I hit the championship round.
Down to the last 30 items or so I came across a pair of brown leather oxfords in the back of my closet. Having been undisturbed since I moved in 3 months ago, I firmly believe that if I weren't moving in a couple days, their Tupperware container on the bottom of my shoe rack would be their final resting place for all time. The shoes are cute; appropriately conservative yet stylish, and yet I've outgrown my taste for them. I wore the shoes once in my life (to a debate team conference when I was a sophomore in high school) and they've been in proper storage ever since. I rediscover the shoes every time I move and I think to myself, "this time, I will wear these." Inevitably I never do and instead I lace up my chucks or flip on a pair of sandals, both of which are more my taste these days. Each time I rediscover them I feel a wave of guilt pass over me, not just because I own something I've only worn once, but because they were a gift. A gift from my recently deceased grandparents. Coming across these shoes felt terrible. They were in perfect condition with the original plastic shoe inserts and everything. They even smelled like new leather still. There were so many other pairs of shoes in my closet. Shoes with holes in the heels and salt stains. Shoes that bore the obvious markings of true love. These were not said shoes. Keeping these Oxfords would mean that I would have to throw away a pair of said shoes. Time to commit. If you plan on owning 100 things, you better love these things. You better need these things. Mint condition brown leather Oxfords were not something I loved or needed and so they simply didn't make the cut. I felt a sinking feeling when I took them out of the box, a feeling which grew heavier as I worked out the plastic inserts. I slid them on and took a look in my full length mirror, just like I had when I first tried them on. I very clearly remember how excited Nonna was to buy them for me, and how excited I felt to own them at the time. Their heels made a heavy clicking noise on the hardwood sales floor, but as I stood on the carpet of my bedroom they made no noise at all. While the shoes felt comfortable, they just didn't fit me anymore and I had to make the decision to get rid of them. I took them back off and put them on top of the don't keep pile; easily one of the hardest decisions I've made in a while.
The reasons I've kept most of the things I own aren't even remotely related to the intended use of that object. Possession has become a misguided attempt at controlling that which I cannot control. The distorted body image of my high school self perpetuated by ownership of jeans I shouldn't ever fit into again. The clingy feeling of hope that comes with grief and its association with anything my grandparents ever gave me. I don't love those shoes. I love my grandparents, and these Oxfords aren't some incarnation of them. Coming to all of this took me about 4 hours, which was about the time it took to sort everything else that came before it. Who knew that the act of minimizing would be so complicated. In all of my purging, it seems that I've grown in other dimensions. Life is like that though, huh?