Of Apparent Importance (Joe)

You might think the details of moving across the country would suck all the romance out of the operation.

Quite the contrary. In the planning of a trip, one assures oneself the trip will be taken.

While I work in New England, my beautiful partner works away back in California arranging our move: Obtaining signatures from barely-competent real estate agents^[1] on our lease, adding her boyfriend to her suddenly-Floridized auto insurance^[2], and lining up a storage unit for the possessions we've decided to keep, leaving our stuff at a variety of locations like consumerist pod people^[3].

It's that third one that's been an interesting path. I don't know about you, but I've always had a particular path when decluttering: I ask myself

"What would I have to do to replace this if I needed it later and didn't have it?"

It leads me to keep some mementos, but fewer than you think: After all, do I need to keep every single crayon drawing my kids did for me when they were 8, or can I keep a select few to convince myself of their nascent genius? Do I need every class picture from 1st grade on up? You know the answer.

Find me. It ain't that hard, I was on the short side.

Bottom line, we're looking at a couple small (twin) mattresses and deciding their fate. Monica says to me today, if they fit in storage, great, if not we can donate them. My response was "Let's save them if we can. There's a cross-country 'Sleep in the back of the Honda Element' trip in our future."

Could we get another couple mattresses anywhere? Sure. Sometimes, though, it feels right to hold on to a symbol, to help sculpt your future. Possessions are kinda funny that way. Happy travels.

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[1] The only thing more frightening than the property owner's agent-- Who doesn't return phone calls and takes a minimum of 8 hours to answer emails-- is the prospect that, given the law of averages, the reason s/he's still in business is that there are people worse at this job than they are. Monica and I took turns on the phone last night exchanging adjectives to describe their 'professionalism' for a solid 25-30 seconds. I'm told this is something endemic to Miami Beach, where "that guy driving your taxi can probably sell you a house."
[2] Predictably, higher. Lots higher. The feeling of being Floridized is apparently what spawned the phrase "Next time at least kiss me first."
[3] Just Portland and Sacramento. For now. No, really.