Purging

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Do you ever let yourself sit somewhere so long that the room grows cold and dark around you? And suddenly you're uncomfortable and you don't know why? You would be so much happier if you just got up, turned on a light and donned a sweater, but you can't move. You've been there so long already, so there you stay, depending on your own limbs to warm each other. You are hopeful yet afraid that your roommate will come home, possibly with a friend you don't know, and find you sitting alone in the dark."Uh, hey?" they'd say.

And you would snap back to life.

In the months since I moved to San Francisco, I've let myself sink into an excess of stuff in just this same way, and suddenly I realized I was drowning. Piles of crap in the corners of my room, my closet regurgitating countless identical tee shirts that had been chewed up and digested, but that I thought I might one day use again. The thing is, when your bedroom is only a 10x10 square with one small closet, you can't afford to accumulate in the way that I do.

I love to wander through thrift stores and pick up $1 frames or funky knickknacks that are just like the ones I see on design blogs and would be oh! perfect! in some eclectic but clean arrangement on a beautiful bookshelf or brick wall that I might one day have. But I don't have that bookshelf now and I don't have the space/time/money/energy to commit to making my temporary month-to-month apartment look like Pinterest (oh god, the pretty of it all). I just don't care quite enough, because most of the time I'm not at home anyway. That's the thing about being 25, you do stuff, so you don't need to own quite so much of it. And you know? When I do have that beautiful bookshelf, that perfect wall or room, there will still be knickknacks out there for the finding.

So upon my return from 2 weeks on the East coast, when I realized I couldn't even unpack because I didn't know how I would put anything away, I set to work purging. I am getting rid of stuff and plan to make due with what I have. My place is nice enough for what it is, so I'll just keep changing out the fresh flowers and, for now, stop collecting junk. I cleaned out my closet and my dresser, I rearranged my bedroom furniture for the third time and have finally found a set-up I like. The hard drive on my computer is full to bursting, so I'm finally going through and deleting all the duplicates and duds from a 6-year-old, 20,000+ file backlog in my iPhoto. I'm growing out my bangs and gettingthehairoutofmyfacegoddammit.

But still, I've stowed away those piles of cheap frames and knickknacks because one day? I am going to do this:

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Source: apartmenttherapy.com via Shannon on Pinterest

I am I am I am.