This morning, Rhonda and I opened up the
U-Haul, toted every box, bag and piece of furniture I had been keeping of hers for the last year and loaded the truck. Then she cleaned my kitchen while I readjusted my bedroom's contents for the lack of furniture to put them in or on. We vaccumed and mopped and then sat down on the mattress I have now inherited from my neighbor and looked at
what we had done.
My friends tell me I live like a college student because, except for a few mailed boxes, everything I own that I plan to take with me will fit inside a Festiva. Even though I knew this a long time ago, which is something I am counting on for my migration to Virginia, it is hard to remember when you have a futon, a full size bed, a dresser, two end tables, a loom (don't ask), and a TV and stand in your apartment.
All the furniture I own is comprised of 3 small, disposable (meaning I am prepared to leave them on the curb) tables, a papasan chair, and two items handed down to me from other people who wanted rid of them: the twin bed and a sofa (everyone has a sofa to give away at some point in their lives). Sitting in all that empty space was like being relieved from the burden of drug addiction for years in succession; you know that you have accomplished something because you removed from, not added to, the tally of items in your life.
It is hard to not collect things after time. Part of it is comfort and part of it is wanting your home to appear complete, as though this means you are complete person. I have known what it is like to have too much and not enough, depending on the year. And now I feel I have just enough, because I am still moving around, looking for a place that is elusive enough to make me want to collect things, to round me out, as it were. But for today, I like being small.