In a Herculean effort to get rid of as many unnecessary things as possible before our move, I had to make some hard decisions.

Contrary to what Ed thinks, I’m not a packrat – I’m a sentimentalist. I keep things because of the memories attached to them; of what they represent in my life: a milestone, an important building block in the cornerstone of my development, something very hilarious from my past. Every single thing I own has a memory attached to it, and what may appear to be random junk to baked potatoes is actually a big pile of importance.

That being said, there were a lot of things I didn’t NEED to keep. I went through a large file cabinet worth of memories, and tossed out almost all of it:

• Paystubs from my job at McDonald’s ($4.50/h is nostalgic)
• Notes from my best friend in high school (we had an unfortunate habit of writing in pencil; most of the words are unintelligible)
• A huge folder of Marvel Universe-esq entries my friend and I created when we were obsessed with comic books and super heroes
• All my report cards with the only exception being my 7th grade report in which my teacher wrote that I needed to write about something other than Transformers for a change
• Awards given in junior high – I was a little keener
• A Sunday School attendance certificate – lols
• The certificate announcing my successful completion of Charm School
• Copies of my high school newspaper (I did keep one copy of the suicide paper, just to keep me humble)
• The Penthouse magazine from 1981 that taught me about sex
• A very nice letter of reference from my boss at the Government of Fish in Victoria
• My first level Lotus Notes certification

I kept a few things, though:

• School pictures – I was adorable in kindergarten, although that baseball mullet I had is regrettable
• Notes from my dad
• The STS-07 User Guide
• Tax returns
• The letter from the government explaining why I failed to graduate high school

I do have a conundrum, though. In the spare room is a wooden trunk that is overfilled with stories my dad wrote. There must be hundreds in there; dad loved to write and he faithfully sent me copies of every new story he had. What am I going to do with these? They take up a lot of room, but I can’t bear to throw them away. Dad was old school in more ways than one; a lot of these are written out long hand. He did eventually start using a typewriter, which really increased the amount of writing he was able to do. I’m frankly surprised that the comma button didn’t just break off the typewriter in protest – as much as I abuse my good friend the dash, my dad LOVED the comma.

I think I’ll check the box when I get home. If the paper is still in good shape, maybe I’ll try to scan each story into a PDF and email them to my estranged siblings. It’ll still break my heart to have to get rid of the stories, and I’ll probably keep the ones in longhand – but having an electronic copy is better than not having them at all, and will take up a great deal less room.

Today is Walkthrough Day. Pictures and measurements coming shortly!

i love floorplans.