Time to Purge

Time to purge again. Periodically I go through a phase where I want to chuck it all away; get rid of all my possessions and simplify my life. Since I was 17 years old I have had possessions in some sort of storage, either paid space or under beds, in closets and attics, shoved away safely like buried treasure. Boxes full of things I never use but can't bring myself to dispose of. Things that evoke memories, things that I wrongly believe define me. I have these conflicting sides of myself. One is a nester, needing these things around me, wanting my creature comforts, wanting a home base, wanting to browse old photo albums, wanting to put my 55 year old teddy bear on the bed. The other side of me is a freak for sparse travel, adventure and randomness, wanting to bust out and away, whittle my possessions down to what will fit in a van and go dirtbag it on the road from trek to climb, from bike ride to paddle, from sea to shining sea. Somehow I've always been afraid of that cliff though, unable to abandon all that tethers me to ME. When I was 29 I left a 10 year banking career and moved to Australia to be a dive master. I took a foot locker with my dive gear, a bunch of bikinis and $300. I had no job lined up and only one vague connection. People asked, "How can you do that, aren't you afraid? I could never do that." But I had a round trip ticket and all my things in storage back in California. What's scary about that? I had to have that safety net. I didn't fully commit. I've never been able to totally let go, to dive in with wild abandon. And now, once again, I feel the urge to purge, to let go, but I still need my safety net. So I will dump a bunch of stuff, go through the boxes, get rid of what isn't necessary and yes, I'll keep my teddy bear and photo albums but maybe I'll get rid of some of the tattered old t-shirts from past races and five coats I never wear any more but that I have convinced myself I might need some day. I'll clear things out to give myself a sense of space and see if that alleviates a bit of the wanderlust. I'll take a weekend camping trip alone on the coast so I can see nothing but ocean in front of me. I'll let go some, and hold on some, still a dichotomy of character. I always think of Steve Martin's scene in The Jerk where he leaves Bernadette Peters, taking "all I need". And I remind myself not to do that, not to cling to things that in reality do not define me. I remind myself to pay attentions to the words of Henry David Thoreau, "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify." 

What I have

What I aspire to