Many thanks to Rayne, who pointed out that my comments weren't working. I've replaced them now with a new source so things should be put to rights, comments-wise.


My de-acquisition mode continues to gain momentum. I've been gathering bag after bag of items to give away, donate or sell and cannot believe 1) how much stuff I'm finding that either never should have moved with us or I'd forgotten about entirely or 2) how much stuff is still left. It's like taking water from the ocean a cup at a time. How on earth did we manage to collect so much? Well, a couple words come to mind (luck and privilege, for starters) but I think my overall tendancy toward saving for "what if?" may have put us over the edge. A lot of what we're getting rid of now is from the "baby boy" category and, since I will deliver any day now the girl who will be our last child, I feel we can release the boy stuff we saved from when our first was new. Now, don't get excited - I'm not talking about the blue rompers or whatever. I have no problem putting a baby girl in blue, but I'd rather not put her in the snap-tee that has snakes and snails on it, you know? I'm a modern woman, but that only takes me so far.


I'm also getting rid of (finally!) bridesmaid's dresses that (surprise!) I never wore after the weddings. Actually, the most expensive of these dresses (nearly $500) was worn the last time I ever saw or spoke to the bride (she didn't like that I had bought her present off the registry and cut off our friendship- strange how you can think you're so close to someone and then they sock you, eh?) so I have zero emotional attachment to it. Most of the maternity clothes - out. Mismatched towels from college days - out. Pots and pans saved in case we ever go camping (yeah, right) - out. Videos that haven't been watched in years - out. It's all going in the hopes that the universe will lead it to others who need it more than I (or at least have more storage space).


There's some stuff I'm simply not ready to get rid of. My softball trophies, for instance. It's not that they're important in the day-to-day sense (since I rarely think of them, let alone open the box to look at them) but they represent something in my girlhood that proved critical to becoming the woman I am today: the ability to compete, to win without guilt and lose without shame, learning teamwork and leadership as well as how to follow. So they're staying - at least for now. My LPs are staying, too: Adam Ant, Duran Duran, OMD, and all the rest. I can't get rid of them just yet - more nostalgia for the girl I was.


I wonder what moves an item from the "keep forever" to the "get rid of it now" column. Is there a specific moment in time, do you think, when something switches from indespensible to indefensible? Or is it a more gradual thing, taking place over time as we grow and change ourselves? Why is my Thompson Twins drumstick (caught while in the front row of a concert at Shea's Performing Arts Center, 1986) still so important to me while a letter of recommendation from a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (where I was a co-op in 1990) or even the wedding cards we received from people I genuinely love are so easy to toss? Clearly, logic has no place in the purging process. Good thing, I guess, or I'd still have the bubble skirt I wore to my junior year homecoming dance. Man, I loved that thing.