Hoboy.

This purge is going to take alot longer than I thought... it took me two hours last night to go through one large plastic bin of letter, cards and mementos - and that bin was half-filled with books.

I have two more of these bins to go through, plus a closet and a library of junk, not to mention CDs and clothes and ohhh dear.

Jeebus help meh.

See, I'm a reader. I can't just throw stuff away without knowing what it is. Thankfully I had, at some point in my past, categorized items in cardboard boxes by person so I knew which ones would go fast (mostly exes and the shithead ex-stepfather), but the notes and cards from my family, well I really had to go through everything one piece at a time to see what to keep and what to toss.

There is a bag of "karmic cremation" items, which I will burn in a big happy fire.
There is a bag of trash.
There is a pile of bank items to shred.

And there is a pile of photos that I have no idea what to do with... don't want to throw them away, many mean alot to me. It's who I have been all through these years to get to the person I am today, from the ugly awkward duckling with braces and bad hair to this lined and adult face.

(click to read more)

I'm happy to be finally doing this, even if it's mentally exhausting. At first it felt unsettling to be tossing things, knowing I will never be able to see or touch or read them again... but then suddenly I felt at peace and released from my past, in a way.

Total congruence.

I wish I could be one of these efficient people who can purge ruthlessly and quickly (like Vegas) but I just can't, it's not me. I tried and it didn't feel right.

Oh well - we all have our quirks I guess.

In all of this, I forgot to mention I saw a big grey dead rat on the sidewalk on my way to work yesterday morning, all stretched out with eyes wide open, as if its last thoughts were "wow that bread tasted stran - aaaaaaaakkk!".

I think this is the 3rd rat I've ever seen in this city, how gross. One was years ago, perched atop a garbage bin just digging in by a bustop, one was caught by my melonhead dog when he was a puppy (although this rat was a pretty pinto, white and dark brown, probably someone's pet that got dumped in an alley) - I made him spit it out, FFS! Diseases! And now this dead little bastard.

Not sure why I just wrote two whole paragraphs about rats. Oh well... good morning everyone from Miss Groggyhead with cobwebs for brains.

/end of Bin There, Done That post/