A river of stuff

So I went to the used book store, the Goodwill donation drop-off, and the post office today, and between those three locations, another carload of stuff is OUT of the condo; therefore, we don't have to move said stuff. The place is really starting to look almost ready to show, which is good because we're working on getting it on the market early next week. All this packing and moving keeps reminding me of how much STUFF we have that flows through our lives, and how difficult it is to keep that stuff to a minimum.

I've seen enough design shows and "clear out the house" type shows that I know all the mantras. You can't have more stuff than you have space, or the stuff will start to take over. Stuff isn't memories, and if you're holding onto stuff to remind you of someone or something, you need to let (at least some of it) go. At the same time, it's incredibly difficult to get rid of, say, DVDs of your favorite movies. We were able to let go of a few, but for most, the objection was "but I love that movie!" As if giving it away were a sign that we don't love it as much as we say we do. My new criterion is whether I think I will watch it again, but that didn't seem to get rid of as many movies as I thought it would. In this case, I think it's a matter of convenience: we want to be able to say "Hey, let's watch The Princess Bride right now!" and then go get it off the shelf. We do have that movie-subscription service, so any of these movies would be available by mail in a couple of days if we really wanted to watch. Some are even part of the "watch online" service. Or we could watch another movie that we have, or something saved on our TiVo, etc., etc. And yet we persist in wanting to have these movies available at all times. I'm as guilty as the next person on this one.

I'm always trying to reevaluate the stuff I really need and the stuff I can let go of, and I guess that's the best I can do. One carload at a time, really.