I'm cleaning out my bedroom. I'm the only child in my family who still has a bedroom in my parents' house. The room doesn't actually look like it did when I lived in it, and some of my sister's things are encroaching on my space and some of my mom's belongings mysteriously appear in the closet sometimes, but it's still my room. It's full of my stuff and I use it as a staging area/dressing room and I sleep in the guest bedroom most of the time.
Anyway, I'm cleaning it out. Today I finally threw away my Russian textbooks. They've been in the closet for 10 years, because I just couldn't bear to part with them after spending so much time with them in college. Also, I always felt that I might possibly be home for an extended period of time (like this one here) and feel the need to bone up on my polite inquiries or the instrumental case or feel compelled to practice dialogues about Masha's visit to Lena (Lena has a new apartment and the furniture is imported). I now realize this is not true, though. When I'm home for an extended period of time, I feel compelled to eat all the chocolate in the candy dish on the piano and to cry when I think about practicing driving a manual transmission car (which is what I should really be doing with my time).
I also threw out a giant stack of index cards full of notes from my college classes. If my notes can be believed, I used to know a lot about Great Britain that I no longer know. For example (did you know?), the Salvation Army started in London's East End and was condemned for elevating women, and the Chartist Movement emerged in the 1830s and there was a concern that it would lead to a revolution similar to the one in France, and Edward Pusey wrote the most popular tracts in the Oxford Movement. I didn't remember any of that.
Now I'm going to go through my desk and find out what I used to know about art and philosophy.
12 comments:
This is a process ... common to people in your life situation ... known officially as the merge purge. Before you merge, you must purge. It makes life easier down the road.
Marmot Dad
I'm about to purge some of your wife's stuff. It's junkin' up my room.
It's amazing how much we used to know that we don't know anymore! And it gets worse! I look at my college notes and think, "who was this Johanna person??"
Perhaps when you are done I'll fly you to Calgary and you can purge Steve's stuff which includes one walk-in closet 90% full and about a 25% of my garage storage. It'll be dead easy for you as you have no sentimental attachment to it yet.
KWB
What of my stuff is there? I have no recollection of any of it. Do you still have that little toy record player in your closet? I was telling Marmot Dad about the fun you can have with a record player and a compliant cat.
I repeat: what stuff? Encroaching? I don't think so.
Don't throw away the note cards! You never know when you might need that random knowledge later in life! Personally, one of my main reasons for taking note was so that it could be recorded on paper to refer back to instead of taking up precious room in my brain. :-)
Johanna--That's exactly how I feel. MBC of the Past intrigues me.
KWB--I am an expert at tossing stuff out. Although, I hear that we're filling up a little bit more of your storage space with some of my things soon. Sorry about that.
SCS--Financial records, Japanese stuff, a few articles of clothing. Yes, I still have the record player. Sadly, though, no cat.
Heidi--The cards are gone. That's what libraries and the Internet are for, my friend.
Who looks stuff like that up at the library? :-) I'm more involved with trying to find local Star Trek conventions, how to play the theremin, and explaining how a 3/4 budget cut CAN relate to losing 40 magazine subscriptions and having only one order in the year.
In a box somewhere I still have 500 or more flashcards that I made to learn Greek vocabulary. I can't even tell you the Greek alphabet anymore. So sad. Maybe I will throw the flashcards out before the next move.
I am thinking about how I used to be smart and it is a little sad. I have one box of college stuff still, pretending that it will be a part of my life again. I need to let go.
It must be that time to go through your stuff and throw things out--everyone I know seems to be doing it.
And I still have some of those same Russian textbooks...
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