It's official... yesterday the last three items of my former apartment were moved outside and the keys turned in. It's such a huge relief to close the chapter on the over-one-month long process to slim down and offload over 75% of my personal effects, officially completing the move.
It's amazing how much stuff/junk one acquires over just one year's time; how the longer you stay in one place, the more things fill your space/life; and how, over time, your junk begins to own you.
In a conscious effort -- it was either store or farewell -- I conducted the ultimate spring cleaning this year and tried as best as possible to keep my temporal possessions from living out their last days in a landfill. Most things were in nice condition with many good years of use left in them, so I wanted to see them go to a new home.
With a multifaceted plan of attack, I hosted a moving sale via Fb, posted flyers at my apt. complex, sold a good bit by posting to craigslist, donated to local non-profits to help folks who are trying to get back on their feet, took boxes and bags of clothes to Goodwill, etc.
When it comes to keeping records, I'm a bit of a hoarder, so the biggest task was getting down to the essentials of the last 7-10 years of personal documents. It was a nice trip down memory lane -- especially reflecting back to my college days as I trimmed down my class files to a small stack of syllabi and essential work -- as eight boxes bacame just two.
Note: I was a little leery of doing anything less than burning these docs, but decided not to let the fear of identity theft rule my life any longer. Plus, I found comfort in the fact that if anyone actually goes to the trouble of stealing my identity, jokes on them since my credit is still ca-ca from that extended period of unemployement. If these identity scoundrels wait it out for a year+ until I restore said credit, then kudos to them; they can reap the rewards of their due diligence.
Over this last week when I was just desperate to get the remaining hold-outs, out, I made the wonderful discovery of freecycle. Living in an apt. complex, I knew that I could put a small pile of odds and ends out by the dumpster & recycling bins, which is the universal symbol for 'free to a good home.'
Sure enough, on Friday morning (when most of the residents were out at work) my pile of junk became someone's new found treasure and disappeared within a half hour of its creation; even while I was still creating it:)
http://www.freecycle.org/
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