I Ponder as I Pack

Packing, purging, and moving is a curious exercise in the absurdity of consumerism. Nothing makes me more annoyed with myself than to kiss good-bye the numerous (and I do mean numerous) craft items, yards of fabric, clever kitchen gadgets, laundry "boosters", and sadly yes, even food items that I have purchased and not used or literally consumed. Cleaning out the freezer yesterday to move it into the shop almost made my physically ill. No, it wasn't the "science experiments", as we used to call those no-longer-edible items that you find in the back of the fridge... it was the bags of things I might have used, had I had the time to get to them (or remembered that I had them.) The frozen, ready-to-fry latkes that I bought for Hanukkah... of 2018, is just one shining example of an idea that sounded good when I looked at it on the store shelf, but never saw the light of day once I got it home.

Giving away literally a storage bin of unused fabrics that looked good enough to buy over the years, but obviously not good enough to actually sew the projects that I had in mind - well, at least I console myself that it went for a good cause, since I donated it all to my sister's quilting guild. I know that beautiful fabric will make its way into quilts for the veterans, cancer patients, elderly shut-ins, etc.

Another box of unused yarn will be donated to the Waldorf school for their hand crafting clubs, I am still struggling with the multiple boxes of books that I have bought over the years that sounded interesting while I was browsing through Barnes and Noble - but I never seemed to find the time to read. (Although, come to think of it... part of the reason I am downsizing and moving into semi-retirement is so that I will have more time to do some of those things I have been putting off doing... right?) In reality, Friends of the Library is probably going to be seeing many more donations come in over the next few months.

Why do I do this? I wish I knew the answer - I could have saved myself enough money to take that river barge trip through France that I have been dreaming about for so long. One thing I have recognized is that I frequently make purchases out of boredom, instead of need. There's no other explanation for going to the store to buy a $5 item and coming home with $50 worth of stuff instead. Shopping is not a recreation, but the consumerism mentality has turned it into one. When I hear the phrase "retail therapy", I cringe. Spending money on things we don't need - especially when there are so many in actual need - is not therapeutical - it is diabolical. I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip here. There are plenty of things we spend our hard earned money on that are legitimate purchases. But there are many more things we buy because we think it will make us feel better, it was a "good deal", someone else got one and we just had to have one, too.

If nothing else, packing, purging, and moving has become, for me, an exercise in reflecting on priorities.