Discarding myself...

Myrtle, how in the world did you move the mattress?
Inch by inch.  It was actually the best fainting I've had in a while, for I had such a soft landing!

I am so incredibly sore from making my solarium a solarium instead of just a spare bedroom with oodles of windows.  However, today I worked on distributing the plants a bit so that I was able to downsize to just one plant rack.  I also pruned all the dead bits off my rosemary bush.  It just needs to hang on a little while more before putting it back into the ground.  I am wondering if Firewood Man could help me make a plastic frame for it next winter so that I could leave it outdoors.

I had a mahogany plant stand by the front door, which has been empty for years because the foyer is just too dim to keep a plant alive.  I finally thought to move it to the solarium.  When I put my string of pearls back outside, I would love to have a fern perched atop this!  I've wanted a house fern my entire adult existence, but I keep killing them.  I am hopeful one might survive in the sun-shiny solarium.

In case you are wondering, this is what I mean by a floral rug.  Something bold in its floweriness, but perhaps a little less contemporary in the actual flowers.  I am not sure about a brown background.  Thankfully, I don't have to decide because this rug is about twice as much as I think I might could purchase if I get some birthday money.  Still, it sure would look good in my solarium, eh?

This is what I call my "office" bookshelf in the basement ... a photo taken a couple of years ago (note the lack of flooring).  This was after having already reduced the bookshelf from three separate bookshelves to just one.  Prior to this bout of organization, I had piles going up almost to the ceiling on the top shelf. Still, you can also see stuff on the floor beneath the shelves and one pile on the top shelf.  I forgot to take a before photo today, but I finally tackled my office bookshelf one more time.

I wept.
I felt like I was discarding myself.
Amos fretted beside me.

[Shaking hands equals fuzzy photo.]

I have wanted to downsize all of my professional stuff, since I no longer am using it.  On the bottom shelf, you can see that I could not bear to part with the bulk of the books I used during my graduate work in literacy and my dissertation research.  I did cull it by 15 more books, but I just cannot bear to toss in the recycle bin my collection of seminal research on literacy.  I wish I could find someone interested in studying it.  Were you to get a Ph.D. in literacy studies today, you would still need to read all of those books.

The binders was the most painful culling.  Actually, this photo represents parts of five days of attempting to downsize my professional stuff.  I finally managed to let go of all but one 1.5 inch binder of samples of marketing materials I designed and a 1.5 inch binder of literacy projects.  The rest is all in the recycling bin.

I kept all my dissertation research and a small binder on graphic organizers.  However, I culled and culled and culled.  For example, all the materials and products from the Mother/Daughter Bookclub I ran for four years is in that blasted recycling bin.  SNIFF.  SNIFF.

I kept two workshop binders, one about hunger and homelessness and one on multicultural literature, even though I am most certain no one will ever ask me to do workshops again.  It was brutal, but I recycled all my materials on foster care and all but one resource on board governance and development.

I kept the binder of old medical records that probably could be tossed, but in there are things that still distress me.  I also kept the binder on the pit bull attack because the restitution judgment against the owner still stands, though no one would ever help me pursue collection.  And I kept my two binders on family history, though I despair of anyone else in my family being willing to take it when I pass on.

Another brutal culling was all of my publications.  I used to have multiple copies, but into the bin went all the extra copies and even all but one of the copies of the professional journals I edited.  SNIFF.  SNIFF.

I also took the time to go through my house renovation, house receipts, and household warranties binders to ensure that the contents in those three binders were only the most relevant.

I tossed the modeling binder, as I have each time I tackle that shelf and then dug it back out.  I don't need it, but the photos in there are the best ever taken of me.  No one wants them, but I cannot throw them away.  Such a brief, almost embarrassing stint in my life.

All in all, my office shelf is now about 75% practical and 25% sentimental.

Four times before, I have given away loads and loads of binders, top-loading sheet protectors, and various office supplies.  And yet I still have much, much more!

These two bags represent the binders I am willing to depart with this go round, along with MILLIONS of top-loading sheet protectors.  Lest you worry about my own top-loading sheet protector status, if you squint really hard at the bookshelf photo, you will see a thick stack of them on the bottom shelf of the black filing stack sitting on the left hand side of the middle shelf.  And I will admit that I kept four binders of each size of binders in a banker's box on the main set of shelving in the basement, even though I probably will not ever need that many binders again in my life.

I lived my entire scholastic and professional life organized with three-ring binders and top-loading sheet protectors.  SIGH.

It is my hope to find a non-profit who might be desirous of binders and top-loading sheet protectors. That I might find a home for the contents of those bags given just how much office supply money they represent.

I finally feel content with the items left on my office shelf, feel as if I have finished my good faith effort to downsize that space in my home.  It literally has been a four-year journey.  And, despite genuinely feeling as I have spent parts of the past five days discarding myself, I am glad to no longer have the painful reminders of just how much I have lost cognitively, just how much less capable I have become.  I think, perhaps, I will be avoiding this part of my basement less now.

[By the way, I am also looking for a home for a gazillion blank CDs and CD cases, too, the by-products of a project I did as a consultant and was given as part of my "payment."]