You’d think that someone who has moved countries and continents as often as I have would just have some kind of in-built ‘editing my stuff’ system, wouldn’t you? I know I keep meaning to install such a system, because every time I have to pack up my whole damn life (again) and stack the boxes into towering piles not unlike skyscrapers and I have to haul 96 garbage bags of crap to the garbage (yet again), I think to myself, “WHY do you never throw anything away? Why why why?” And I swear up and down and back and forth and until I am blue in the face that I will do massive clean-ups and -outs of stuff twice a year without fail, and I promise that I will not let stuff get one up on me and I double-pinky-swear that I will never ever again hold on to stuff that seems to serve no purpose. And then I embark on said bi-annual clean-up and I come across loads of stuff! that seems to serve no earthly purpose… until I start to consider throwing it away. And this, you see, is my downfall: I tell myself that I will only keep things that are worth keeping, that I will need/use again, that justify their space on my shelf by their validity and helpfulness, etc. But the issue is that I have one heck of a fantastic imagination, and I can imagine the most crack-pot, unlikely scenarios whereby I will NEED THIS STUFF! AGAIN.
OK, here’s an example. True story, I swear. I was cleaning out my box of personal papers and stuff upstairs and came across my bank card from the HSBC. Used when I lived in Hong Kong (I left HK over 8 years ago now) and had an account at this bank. I closed this account before leaving HK, yet I still have (a) the bank card and (b) the bank books (BTW, do you remember bank books? Paper? You’d take it in to be updated and the printer would make that sound as it printed off all your transactions? Also: if you really want to depress yourself, take a look at your HK bank book that was used before you had children, or a mortgage, or nannies and play schools to pay for. Look at how much money was just sitting there at all times to buy plane tickets and shoes and go for facials. JUST LOOK. And yes, even as I sobbed over my HSBC bank book and contemplated throwing it away, I did not. I justified this by saying that I needed SOME proof that I used to actually have some money. Once).
Ahem. I got sidetracked; apologies. Anyway, I decided to keep the bank book but was going to throw the bank card away since, hey! The account no longer exists! But then, I had one of my ‘this just may happen’ scenarios go through my head: what if one day five years from now, the HSBC branch I banked with is going through its history and finds out that the bank owes me money? And what if they ONLY take the bank card as a form of identification (well, also my passport, duh)? And what if bank books are not accepted? What then? Huh? I will be so sorry to not have my bank card, won’t I? When I am refused my several thousands of Hong Kong dollars? Right? Right? So – my HSBC bank card is upstairs, waiting for the e-mail (they don’t have my e-mail, BTW) which will hand me oodles of money owed to me by that bank which has simply not yet realised its mistake. So. You see my problem.
The other issue is that quite often – like maybe six times year – something DOES actually happen and I thank God that I kept that stuff, whatever it may be. For example, I had this amazing pair of earrings that I bought here in Warsaw. Plain silver, round, about the same size as a penny, with delicately sketched flowers. Loved them. They were perfect for jeans-and-shirts and for when I went to the grocery store and wanted to look nice but not put on all the fancy. And I lost one of the earrings. I have no idea how, but I looked high and low for the thing and I was so irritated, because when I went back to buy another pair, they were sold out. And I looked and looked and just could not find a pair of earrings that walked that fine line between casual/ fancy in a way that worked for me. In the end, I bought a cute pair of kind-of-Celtic-inspired round silver earrings which are quite a bit fancier but still quite OK. But did I throw the earring away? No, I did not. Every once in awhile, I’d be pawing through my jewelry, deciding what to put on for a meeting, and I’d come across this lone flower earring, all sad and lonely in the box, and I’d get all peeved again. But I wouldn’t throw it away.
Then one day, I was going through the laundry basket looking for Max’s other sock (next story), and in frustration, I just dumped the whole thing out on the washroom floor. And? My earring fell out! It had been caught in the folded material of the basket itself for months and months, snagged so completely that even when there was no laundry in the basket, it was impossible to see. I squealed and ran to my bedroom and reunited the earrings and put them on immediately, all the while thinking, “Ha! This is why I never throw anything away!”
Other victories and triumphs to add to that list: Max’s OTHER sock (which Piotr thought they lost at the swimming pool two months ago, but which mysteriously resurfaced yesterday; they are now a happily-joined pair of dinosaur socks), a business address requested by a former colleague (one I have not seen for almost 10 years), a postcard as proof that someone’s boyfriend WAS actually in the country he said he was (thereby saving the relationship) and bills and coins from my trips to India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Thailand (to loan to a former student who was doing a project on Asian currencies).
So, as I stood there this morning, contemplating the mess under the stairs, I heaved a sigh: I know it has to be done – and soon – but I get the feeling that all I will accomplish will be a shifting around and reorganising of the mess without any real progress… rather like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I’ll do it anyway, because hey! Maybe I’ll find a vitally important something, like a keychain with my old house key on it (that opened the door of the house we sold over 20 years ago. But you NEVER KNOW!).
Right?
