{Photo by my wonderful friend Chris. If you need a photographer in the Denver area, you certainly need to give him a shout}
I'm moving to Portland!! I'm ditching this popsicle stand known as Denver and making my way out west. So far, I'm a clustermuck of excitement, stress, anxiety, and pure ecstasy. The decision to move was pretty rash and hasn't be received well by some (most) of my family and friends; but there a fair few that have been extremely supportive, and for that I am very thankful.
My launch date is July 16th. I should be in the Pacific Northwest by July 18th and settled in with my 80 year old great-uncle Tony and his spunky wife of 4 years, Auntie Kathy. When they offered to let me stay with them, Auntie Kathy's exact words were, "You can stay as long as you like... not permanently. But as long as you like." Other than my silvered haired roommates, I have no friends in the area and that is oddly liberating and exciting to me. I can start over, get out of these bad habits I've set for myself and figure out how to do this "life" thing everyone's always talking about.
Oh! Did I mention Powell's?? The largest independent bookstore in America? Yeah. You'll have a book-gasm within minutes of stepping through the front doors, especially when the cashier tells you there's no sales tax in Portland.
My list of things to do over the next four weeks has been growing; it seems that things are being added faster than they are being checked off. But over the past few days I've gotten rid of nearly all of my clothes, traded them in at consignment stores for higher end items that will last longer and keep me dry during the rainy months, which I'm told are January through December.
I also cleaned out every hiding spot I've created in my apartment. There's the nook between the bookcase and the window where important papers go to die; the drawers in my desk that have become a graveyard for old (and ugly) stationary and over-sized thumb tacks I apparently thought would be a wise purchase at the time; under my bed where the over-sized bags I think I needed to make me a better and trendier student and writer have found their permanent resiting place; and, most frighteningly, "The Linoleum Room." The Linoleum room is a spare room that came with our apartment. It has a drain in the middle of the linoleum floor (hence the name), a sink, awkward and unusable shelves, and windows that lead to the fire escape, that have been painted shut. When we moved in, we slid all our odds and ends that didn't have an immediate home into The Linoleum Room with wonderful intentions to sort through them later. Then we made the mistake of hanging up a curtain in the doorway so you wouldn't be able to see the mess. A year and half later, the odds and ends are still there, with many more additions that have settled in quite nicely.
Yesterday, in 90 degree heat (and with painted shut windows), I forced my way through the boxes and boxes of unused decorations, birthday card, board games, cleaning products, and miscellaneous mementos. My mantra: "Do I really want to pack this?" And if there was still some hesitancy: "Will this fit in my Honda Accord?" The answer was usually always a resounding NO and the Good Will on Broadway is now fully stocked with all the junk I've collected since I moved out of my parent's house 5 years ago.
I looked around The Linoleum Room, with linoleum floors now actually visible and my brain somehow felt so much lighter. Then I turned to my closets, opened the door and examined the few articles that survived the purge. My shoulders didn't feel quite as heavy as they did a few days earlier. Even though I'll be going to Portland with nothing but some picture frames and my books, and will most likely be that girl that wears the same outfits every week, I feel so liberated. All that "stuff" was anchoring me, holding me back. And it really was just "stuff." None of it meant anything important, none of it was hand made or given to me out of love or importance. It was plastic and cheap and making me feel toxic without even knowing it.
As a creative individual, de-cluttering the mind is so important; you have to push away the clutter to let the inspiration trickle in. Creating a clutter-free environment is a huge part of that. I'm a big believer that the space you make around you is a reflection of what's going on in your mind. I've proven that fact in my own life time and time again- when I'm distracted or depressed or stressed, the environment around me starts to mirror that with piles and messes and acclimation in general.
Handing bag after bag to the employees at Good Will and looking back at my empty car and thinking about that empty Linoleum Room, I could feel my mind open up a bit. I didn't feel so weighted down and the task of packing up a Honda Accord didn't feel so daunting. Getting to check that off my list was HUGE and now I'm wondering what to do for the next four weeks before I leave.
Up next: Plan a going away party (for myself because no one else will do it. Harrumph!) and hoping that my drunken hipster friends will mesh nicely with my conservative and very anti-hipster family members. I shall report back with hopefully only mildly disastrous details.
PS- Hope you all are well and enjoying your summers! I'm tyring to catch up with all your blogs will be commenting soon. I've missed you!
Posts
