If someone had the inclination to go back through the years-long archives of CPF (and I’d worry about you if you did), you’d see many gaps for periods when I skipped creating posts, along with a series of mostly lame excuses.
But this time, I’ve got a good one – I moved! After 30 years in the same 4-story townhouse, the hubby and I decided it was time to simplify our lives – and cash in on some sweet home equity! – as we enter the so-called “twilight years.”
Moving ranks among the most stressful activities in life and I truly believe it gets harder as you get older, especially as you acquire all the stuff that comes with growing up, having children, traveling, and collecting memories. Add to that being a rather obsessive collector of cool (to me) miscellany like floaty pens, Marvin the Martian items, and cartoon glasses. And last, but definitely not least, consider decades of being comped with free music in all its forms – vinyl, CDs, cassettes, DVDs. The result is scores of leaden boxes that cause even burly veteran movers to catch their breath as they haul ’em up four flights of stairs to the new apartment.
We may have purged an actual ton of furniture, clothing, books and other media – donations to the library, offers on Craigslist, and Freecyle. The guy at the Goodwill collection site knew me by name as I arrived at least once a week with bags and boxes to fill his truck. We sold a few more valuable items (our beautiful bankers chairs are now in the common room of a Fraternity House in Maryland, whose brothers include Harrison Ford, Paul Rudd, and William Daniels). I traded away scores of CDs, LPs and cassettes to my local shop, Falls Church’s CD Cellar (unsolicited testimonial!), and what they didn’t want was likewise given away.
I bought some good record storage boxes (at left) but couldn’t afford enough for the whole collection.
(At right) The professional packers, who literally wrapped decorative rocks in multiple layers of paper, apparently had never seen vinyl records before. I was aghast when I saw these boxes come off the truck. Luckily, they – and I! – survived the ordeal and no vinyl was harmed in the end.
When the packers came to put all the remaining Collected Items of Our Life into boxes for transfer to their new home, we looked at the mountains of cardboard and knew they wouldn’t fit in our new space. Luckily, the apartment complex had a garage space available, where about half of my music and memorabilia collection now resides, along with winter clothes, seasonal decorations, and other not-immediately-needed items.
It’s a guest bedroom! It’s an office! It’s a media storage room!
It’s a mess! (This was day one. The shelves are up and there’s some sense of organization in progress.)
Sorting the annexed collection, bringing back bags of media, and restocking the shelves in the spare bedroom/office/music room has been a trip down memory lane for sure. Each day, I pick a few CDs and/or LPs to revisit. “Are you still worth keeping?” I ask each one as I place it on the turntable or in the player. It’s probably not surprising that some things I thought I dearly loved have not aged well. And sometimes I make a rediscovery that delights me. Moving forward, I may use this space to shout out some happy finds and reveal who doesn’t make the cut.
And so, another life chapter begins, appropriately as the season of new pencil boxes and notebooks arrives, too. Maybe this old blog also has some new life left in it. Thanks for sticking around to see!
PS/BTW – I don’t know who actually reads this blog. But thanks. I love you. If you’re a Close Personal Friend who wants/needs to know the new address so that we can exchange actual snail mail or packages (always happy to get new vinyl!), send a note and I’ll get back to you with the deets.
Close Personal Friend 