It Continues

You thought I forgot. 

You thought Mission: Declutter went the way of so many proclaimed projects.

Well, I hate to disappoint, but it is going along at pace.  This past four-day weekend (no, it wasn’t a holiday, I just took four days) I finished up the living room and even tackled the front hallway. 

I slowly reclaimed the living room.  Three small boxes of charity bound items are at their designated charities and we have four quality items to sell. 

We also finally freed up some floor space by dismantling the ‘4D’ puzzle of London we have been working at for a month. 

One of the items sent away to the charity shop was my bookbag from University.  I graduated over ten years ago but I still have this bag.  I only went back to it once.  I went back to it during my first round of graduate school.  I was having a bit of a rough time in the program and I thought the bag had a bit of magic.  The years I used it during undergrad were so great I thought I might reclaim a bit of that magic if I reclaimed the bag. 

It didn’t really work. 

But, I kept it around.  I still believed it had a bit of magic.  Or maybe I was just a bit nostalgic for a time when I was a bit more confident and ignorant of the world.  It was a good time.  The good times didn’t translate to the new use.

However, the bag and its related magic have gone a bit dusty and musty.  But I still couldn’t part with it.  This weekend, I decided it was time to let it go.  As I have said so frequently, time is moving along and I am changed by it and it is time to embrace those changes. 

But before I sent the bag out to serve someone else, I removed the butterfly patch.  They could have the bag but the patch would stay with me. 

Suddenly, it was a different bag.  I had no attachment to it.  The magic had left the bag.  I’m sure there is some beautiful statement I could make about the fleeting magic related to the fleeting presence of a butterfly, but I’ll spare you the nausea. 

Next up is the bedroom.  This will take quite awhile.  The wardrobe alone will probably take at least three weekends.  Then there is the dresser, the built-in shelves, night stands, under the bed…For such a simple room we have a lot stashed there. 

I clean as I go which mostly means dusting.  Dust has become the bane of my life and damp dust sucks my will to live. 

We have a lot of damp dust.