At the age of fifty-six I found myself preparing to move from Wisconsin to New Hampshire. This upcoming adventure of changing my life was looking to be an exciting time. Until I looked around the apartment I’d been living in for almost two decades. How could one person have gathered so much stuff into a small one-bedroom place? There were boxes lining the hallway, some of which had not been opened in over twenty years. There was no flat surface left uncovered by the piles on top of piles of stuff that I must have thought were crucial to my survival at one time. There was not a drawer or shelf that had escaped dangerous overloading. Fibber McGee’s closet was a wasteland compared to mine. I did not even want to think about the garage or storage space I also had overflowing with stuff. When had I become a hoarder? Over forty years of accumulation (I’m pretty sure I escaped hording for my first ten years or so) were staring me in the face, daring me to move it all 1200 miles east.

So I decided to purge myself of my belongings. I planned on being ruthless in my cleansing process. I’d like to say this idea came form a newfound Buddhist philosophy of shedding my dependence on things. Taking myself into my new chapter of life with less baggage allowing for a cleaner life style. I’d like to say that was my motivation but in truth, I just could not see physically moving all that stuff half way across the country. So I made it my goal to take only what I could carry in the back of my car.

That meant, of course, that I was going to have to exclude most of my things from the trip. Or get a larger car. So how do I chose what is worthy of space in my SUV? Furniture was my first consideration. The couch was what was left of a past life marriage. The coffee table lived on the streets for a short time before joining me. My dressers all had crippled joints. None of my furniture stood muster. Only the bed was regrettably left behind. I just could not see cruising along the highways with a queen-sized mattress and box spring strapped to the top of the car. Every box had to be gone through, every memory had to be weighed but over the course of a week I was able to pack up my books, DVD’s, clothing, and what little “junk drawer” extra items I was keeping. (Side note; I had ten boxes of DVD’s and one of photos. I know what’s important.)

And then the junk men came.

As self-imposed surrealistic events go, watching four large men carry away everything you once thought was important and toss it unceremoniously into a truck, is right up there on the Salvador Dali scale. It took about four hours to cart away Fifty-Six years of my life. Some of it destined to be sold. Some of it destined to be donated. But most of it headed to that great junk heap in the sky. I stood there watching my life being carted away like so much trash. Shortly after that I hopped into my fully loaded car and headed into the rising sun, ready to begin collecting my next life’s pile of stuff.