Every time I watch Hoarders, I am overwhelmed by the compulsion to throw things away. Anything really, but usually in bulk. If it's not a substantial purge, the compulsion lingers. I have to say I've already done a fair amount of downsizing as far as personal property is concerned. I moved from a three bedroom house with garage into a two bedroom apartment with no garage into a single room of this condo. My piles of crap used to fill the entire space of each of those larger residences. I have no idea how I managed to reduce so drastically while transitioning between each. Well, I have some idea. I donated a ridiculous amount to Goodwill. I also donated a ridiculous amount to the landfill.
There's a point to this, I assure you. I'm in the midst of another purge cycle. I recently watched my new all time favorite episode of Hoarders. It involved two sets of animal hoarders. They were also very unstable, aggressive people.
It should be noted that every time I watch an episode of the show I also think of a certain group of relatives of mine. I think of how they have amassed all the discarded furniture and trinkets of our combined family past and how the growing bulk of that bullshit is no longer able to be contained in only one home. It has migrated to two now. I used to be really upset whenever I'd see something of mine - my dresser from childhood with the car stickers I attached, the missle casing my uncle saved for me from his time in the Navy, my office chair which mysterious dissapeared from my room while I was still living in my grandmother's house - but I've realized that I simply don't care about things. I don't have any attachment to the things I've lost in this way. For the most part, I wouldn't even remember half of them having ever existed or played any substantial part in my life if not for this museum of ancient family artifacts that has been created for that precise purpose. The office chair was rather more recent and what I would classify as a real bitch move since I was still using the damn thing, but I'm not sure they can help themselves when it comes to helping themselves. Anyway, I don't need it anymore. I've done perfectly well without. Maybe better than that because I learned not to allow them into my home if there's anything I don't want to mysteriously vanish and just as magically reappear in their monument to other people's second-hand bullshit. They might not know any better, but I do. It's difficult for me to be in that environment. I don't like feeling as if all the things piled up around me are trying to hug me as I try to walk by without disturbing the precarious way it's all been stacked. It's like a deranged version of Jenga. If you lose, you're going to be crushed to death by half-empty photo albums, dirty clothing, broken clocks, old telephones, entire dish sets, and all the miscellaneous things As-Seen-On-Tv. I feel somewhat claustrophobic in those houses. I am able to fully cope with the situation only when I'm fully inebriated. Which might explain... nevermind. I'm not even going to attempt to psychoanalyze anyone in my immediate family. It's not worth it. We're all fucking crazy in our own special little ways.
Back to my original point, I'm in a purge cycle once again. This time I'm discarding another round of clothing that I'm fairly certain I've never worn. It's nice clothing. It's not exactly what I would define as my own personal style, but I could see myself wearing it someday. Of course, someday is just code for never going to happen. So, there's another Goodwill donation. Perfect timing, too. It's all winter clothing. I'm also discarding all my management propaganda. All my binders and files and charts and manuals - relics of another career and another life. I also found a birthday card to me from my former babysitter and failed tenant of the yellow house - ripped that shit up into tiny pieces. It's absurd the things you keep for years without realizing just how much dead weight you're dragging along with you. I don't think that's something worth saving for seventeen years - especially since the bitch always put ketchup on my sandwiches. A Ziggy birthday card is not going to make that all better.
I don't know. Sometimes I don't understand why I have so many things. Things I don't need or want or use or even know I have. No matter how many times I try to purge myself of the useless and irrelevent, I always manage to keep an entire stash of things to surprise myself with later. "What the hell... Why do I still have this? ...and what is it? ...or what is it a piece of?" I don't know.
I also have a problem with discarding computer components. That's the real issue I'm going to address tonight. I believe that I had kept these components for spares in case I needed to replace one in my desktop computer. This never happened, but it could have. Still, it didn't. Of course, I've upgraded and rendered that ideology obsolete and slightly absurd now. I just found three 3.5" floppy disk drives and a whole gang of diskettes to go in them. I think I missed my window of opportunity for transferring whatever the hell is on them onto a better media format. As far as that goes, I think it's about time to let go of the VHS and audio cassettes, too. I don't even own the devices necessary for utilizing either and couldn't see myself purchasing them even if I did manage to locate any that still function. So, those are all going to be added to the discard pile tonight.
I like throwing stuff away. It's been my favorite thing to do ever since I moved out of my grandmother's house and I no longer had to worry about her digging through my garbage and trying to salvage everything I had tried to throw out. If you've never seen a hat made out of crushed soda cans or a purse made out of plastic shopping bags all twisted up and woven together, you can't possibly begin to comprehend my anxiety about throwing things away in my grandmother's house only to get them back reincarnated in some craft-time insanity for Christmas. I wish I was joking about that. Don't even get me started on The Great Food Expiration Date Debate. I don't eat anything that has an expiration date on it that has expired. I don't care if that date was yesterday. I'll shave my head and eat my own hair before that will ever be an option. Of course, if I were to try to throw out a food item with an expiration date that has expired, I'd have to not eat dinner at my grandmother's house for the next week. Because if it's not magically back in the refrigerator, it's in the crockpot. It's not much of a surprise after the first time. Fool me once, shame on you - but it'll never happen again. Believe that. As far as that goes, I don't typically eat at my grandmother's house anymore. I only brave it on special ocassions and when someone else is cooking - not that it's any safer, it's actually more dangerous for completely different reasons. But, I actually didn't eat there for the majority of the time I lived there after that first revelation. You're not going to win me over to your side of the argument by quietly revealing to me that the dinner I just consumed was created solely from all the food ingredients I had thrown away for being expired and half-rotten after they had laid at the bottom of the garbage bag for a few days at room temperature while cultivating an entire colony of food borne bacteria which are now rioting in my digestive system and will soon be expelled from my every cavity. I don't respond well to that shit. If you're not related to me and you try a stunt like this, you won't survive to tell the tale. If you are related to me and you try a stunt like this, you should be prepared for some old school, Shakespearean tragedy to befall you. I'm a fairly dangerous person when I'm properly motivated. Just something to remember, but you'd be better off not testing me on that point. So, yes. I thoroughly love throwing shit away now and never having to see it again. It's simply delightful.
I have resisted my family's attempts to plant the seeds of hoarding in me - other than the outdated media components, of course, which will be rectified shortly. I guess that makes me a survivor of sorts or a rebel. I may make it look easy, but it was a long, cluttered road.
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