another one from workshop last week. prompt was "moving"

It's like this: everything goes into boxes. suitcases. trunks. and then there's too much stuff so you divide it in half. get ride of that half. don't think about the forty Hefty bags full of stuff you've already tossed. or all the books. or the shoes and clothes and dishes that went to Goodwill. the Salvation Army. fifteen boxes of vinyl. all those precious records to some collector/dealer from upstate. gave half, a third of what they're worth. and all those vintage clothes. hundreds you could have made on eBay but there's no time. like the signs always say, "everything must go" and with it...it's like all the memories attached to every little thing, like they're being ripped out - all the tangled roots yanking at your heart and your bones just ache. There's something freeing about it they all tell you. like they'd know. like any of them would understand. stuff becomes family, replaces those gone or missing. you touch a rock, a toy, and old shirt and you remember the moment, the person, the past. nostalgia's a sickness and when you watch the shows about hoarders on TV, you know you've come so close and you think of the 3,000 books and how many hundreds are still left. how they all should go now, really and to move? everything? you would rather have the moments back, the people, the music, all those days and years, instead of the stuff. you would rather go back to a time when all you had fit in a suitcase, a milk crate for your records, and a sleeping bag. but when viewed individually each item becomes precious. they see it as junk. And you sometimes picture other people going through your things and know they would not want any of it and so now, moving, it's time. time to empty the boxes and suitcases. to sell it off and recycle and give it all away until there is nothing left but you and the memories because really, that's what's important, right?

(c) 2010