As you may have gathered from some of my previous posts, while I don’t consider myself to be anything near an actual hoarder, I do have a tendency to collect and keep things that provide no real intrinsic value to my life. Usually I keep these things for one of three reasons:
- Nostalgia
- I am almost certain that at some point they will be useful again
- They got stuffed somewhere and I forgot I had them
Reason #1 is why I keep things like expired driver’s licenses from various states. Reason #2 is why I have clothes in my closet that are two sizes too small… because one day that diet WILL work and I will fit in those clothes again! Reason #3 is not really a reason at all. But it explains why I find coupons for businesses that no longer exist and pens that have run out of ink.
Moving day is usually a big clean-out day. You must weigh the importance of keeping your junk with the effort involved in packing, transporting, and unpacking your junk. And also finding a suitable hidey-hole in your new place in which to stuff it.
Which is why I remember so clearly that day 2 weeks ago when I looked at the binder full of print-your-own CD labels that I had bought for wedding favors over 3 years ago. You know, the kind that if you want to make someone a mix CD you can create a personalized cover, put the paper in your printer, then peel off the sticker and slap it on the top of the CD? They worked great for the specialized CDs we gave our wedding guests but I thought, “who gives mix CDs anymore when there’s flash drives and iTunes?” So I threw them all out.
Only today, I needed to make a duplicate copy of a DVD, and wanted a professional cover, rather than hand-writing the name of the video on the CD in permanent marker. And there’s irony for you. I don’t use the darn things for 3 years and yet, 2 weeks after I throw them away, I actually could’ve used them…
