moving

I finally moved from the Balboa apt to a new place after being there several years.

A friend of mine who came to help said this is an extreme case of moving that she's ever seen because of the amount of stuff I had. Let me explain, I didn't just rent a room at the Balboa place, I had pretty much the whole place to myself because of my two "ghost" roommates. Anyway, I finally unpacked everything at the new house, and because the place is bigger, it seemed that I actually had less stuff!

Here is an old list of items I had when I first came to CA after my Japan internship:

- 3 halogen lamps
- 1 carpet
- 1 bike
- 9 plastic crates
- sofa
- big shelf
- white book shelf
- metal shelf
- guitar
- white board
- 2 suitcases
- 8 white crates
- 1 mirror set + posters
- 6 boxes of books
- 15 misc. boxes


That list seemed like a LOT of stuff for a graduating student when I moved over, but it looks very very simple in comparison to what I have now...

I rented a 16' truck to move all my stuff, and all 793 cubic feet of space were filled up! First day after the move, I stood in my new garage and almost cried because I can hardly comprehend how to start unpacking. I eventually did it one box at a time, but this move taught me a huge lesson on how NOT to accumulate stuff!

As a Christian, I have always been taught that materialism is no replacement for spiritualism, and that Earthly things are disposable. Well, a week after sorting and cleaning out, I have identified almost 1/3 of my belongings as completely unnecessary and should be donated/given away. However, with that said, I just couldn't part with any of my books, the old Chinese ones, or the new coffee table books ...

Another category of items that I have a hard time disposing of is memorabilia, ironically they are probably is the least useful. As we grow older, things happen to us, we go to places, we experience things, our picture stack grows taller (now it's all digital, but still) I used to try to limit such collections to one box, but now it's taking over several boxes worth... some times I wonder if I should just toss the whole box, instead of opening it to see what's inside.. because of course then, knowing what memories it contained, I couldn't bring myself to toss the box's contents then... my friend ddchen sent me a link to take a picture of various memorabilia effects, Umm.. interesting thought... another related article on "handling sentimental clutter" here.

Bottom line, I am not going to buy anything that's non-essential for at least 3 months! Meanwhile, I will take stock of things that I can live without and contribute them towards other ppl/cause/charities.