What I like most about moving (well, I just spent the better part of the last long weekend of the year with good weather packing, so, I'm allowed to highlight the best parts), is the fact that I get to throw away stuff that I seem to have hung on to forever. The size 2 jeans from three years ago (yes, I've finally accepted I'm never fitting into those again), the excruciatingly painful, but beautiful, boots from last winter, skiwear from the one time I went skiing and decided never to do it again... yes, its time to purge the closets!
My enthusiasm to "purge" is almost...uncanny. I simply revel in it. Unfortunately I dont do it more often. But when I do it once an year, I'm on a roll. I've seen others struggle inwardly when throwing away something in good condition. Not me. I go trigger-happy. I can easily accept that the things I haven't used in a while, wont be used anytime soon, and throw them out in cold-blood. I make split-second decisions , and I never regret them.
Well, except for this one time. When the above mentioned boots had eaten away at my feet for an entire Friday evening and after getting off at our train stop, I had to take off my shoes and walk home, in a black cocktail dress and colorful striped, knee-high socks, no less. After getting home, I told my husband that in the time that I took a quick shower (had to soak my poor feet in hot water before I felt anything in them), he was to throw them down the garbage chute, as I didn't have the strength to "finish them off". By the time I was done, he told me he had done it, and I thought good riddance.
Until a week later, when I had a dinner with my colleagues and I had no shoes that'd go with my dress. I suddenly wasn't so sure he should've have listened to me. I was, after all, somewhat disoriented from the pain and the humiliation of being seen walking around in socks. Plus, he should've understood known that I didn't really mean to throw them away. One needs time to think these things over, especially when it comes to shoes. But hubby dearest, being smarter than the average man, and knowing the important place that shoes have in a woman's life, had actually hidden them under the kitchen sink and everything was alright with the world again!
Of course, since then, I've only worn them once, before deciding that my feet were in danger of becoming permanently impaired if I wore them again. An year later, I've finally thrown them away (this time for real). But hey, what woman doesn't felt the most difficult internal struggle when throwing out a perfectly beautiful pair of shoes? Totally understandable.
So anyway, I'm a happy person. I can almost confidently say that I've thrown out about as much as I've packed and I feel so much the better for lugging only the things I really need to our new place. Ah, what a great feeling at the end of a long weekend!
