I’m A Pack Rat, and I’ve Been on an Archaeology Dig…Through My Life

I’m a pack rat. I have kept stuff for decades, stuff of little or no value. Stuff I kept not because I needed it, or even wanted it, but because keeping it was habitual, and comforting.

I know it’s bad for me, and I have gone through two massive cleanouts, first when I moved home from Colorado, second when we moved into this house. Each time I felt massive relief to being rid of so much junk, but nature takes over, and I have a decade of stuff accumulated.

In this, my year of transformation, one thing I want to do is to once again unburden myself. This afternoon I pulled a box out of the garage and I found crap in it that dates back 40 years. I’m not talking useful stuff, mind. I said crap, and I mean crap. Crap that followed me and burdened me for four decades.

It’s an interesting, and amusing, archaeological dig, but in an eight cubic foot box I found one tiny bag of stuff worth keeping. The rest of it is just junk. Junk I kept for reasons, and because. Junk I don’t need.

So I’m letting it go.

It’s amazing. I have more room to store things I actually want, and need. Better, it’s transformative. I’m unburdening myself of things from the past, and at the same time, from connections to the past.

Connections I no longer want, or need.

Connections that are holding me back.

Connections getting in the way of my transformation.

Digging into my past has been interesting. Letting go of my past has been freeing.