(Nearly) Everything Must Go

What made me snap? What brought on this sudden inability to deal with the mass of stuff in my life? I can't quite say, but I do know that whatever's hit me has hit me hard.

I need them gone--the books I've read already and won't read again, the ones whose covers I haven't cracked (and won't anytime soon), the cds whose coats of dust prove they've gone long unheard, the trinkets I can never figure out what to do with, the clothes I just don't wear, the bike I've not ridden in years, the PowerBook I can no longer get to power on.

I need my basement clear, my shelves spartan, my desk clean for once. Moreover, I think, I need fretting about stuff--storing it, using it (or not), getting rid of it--to stop being such a useful procrastination tool. Better that it just goes.

But there are some things I just can't give up, like the book of essays about home Paula sent me when I'd first moved to SF and found myself in the midst of a crisis over what to call home, or the Cranks recipe book Rachel gave me as inspiration for us to move to England and open a veggie cafe. I can't let go my very first cd (drivin' 'n' cryin's Mystery Road), or the ones that got me through high school (all the old REM, the Replacements, even--yes, I admit it--a bunch of U2). And anything that I'd truly miss if it disappeared from my life stays put.

The rest of it, though, is on its way out by any means necessary--Half.com, craigslist, tag sale, what have you. When the clutter's finally gone, maybe I'll be able to glimpse what I've been missing.