A decade of memories......or junk?

After a decade of living in this apartment, I am moving house.  It feels surreal as I go through my belongings and throw away things I've kept for far longer than I should have.  Moving is good.  It keeps one energized and stimulated eventhough it's so tiring you forget where your days went.  Moving gives us an opportunity to go through our things and throw away the "excesses" and things that are no longer functioning.

Moving this time I've learnt that I am a great hoarder of plastic bags, paper bags and now canvas bags.  You name it. I have every kind of bag you could possibly want.  I've got the tiniest paper bags to the biggest plastic bag you've ever seen. I got bags from different countries, continents and different designs.  Different versions from the same shop even.  Wow, I wonder if I am saving them to have a museum of shopping bags?

I am not going to collect them anymore though.   I've learnt my lesson.

I bought some large black garbage bags this time and they are wonderful.  As Alex says, once you throw things inside them, you never see it again so it doesn't tempt you to take it out and mourn over it.  I've used about half a dozen so far.

I filled up one entirely with my bag collection. Others with magazines, letters, bills.  I realize I've killed many trees in my lifetime. I hope some of this trash gets recycled.  Others I fill with cassette tapes.  That's right..Cassette tapes and vdos.  Ten years ago, we still used them to listen to music. Now everything is on mp3 and mp4.  Movies on DVD.  I don't even have a cassette tape player anymore and my vdo machine hasn't been used in years.  Instead I just have an ipod filled with over a thousand songs.  I love it.

After all this, my tip to everyone is to at least once a year, buy some large black garbage bags and go through your drawers, shelves, coffee tables and closets.  Throw out things you have not touched in at least a year.  As one my readers recommend, put them into a box, label them with a date and if you don't find yourself needing anything from it after a certain period of time, throw it away!

Don't keep everything just for memory sake like I do! The memory is in your head...if you keep everything, you won't be able to find it when the need arises.  Happy cleaning!

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