i realized something about myself over the weekend,
and apparently it applies emotionally too…

i’m a hoarder.

i finally cleared out my storage unit,
which contained no furniture but about:

eight bags of clothes,
six boxes,
and enough random artifacts to suggest i had been preparing for the apocalypse.

there were useful things,
sure,
but there was also a flat-screen tv from 2016,
tons of DVDs and blu-rays with nothing to play them on,
CDS i haven’t touched in years,
nearly 100 pairs of underwear from my laundromat-avoidance era,
and clothes i collected like they were limited-edition trading cards.
these are said bag of clothes still sitting on my living room floor:

once everything landed in my new place,
i started looking around at bags on bags on bags and thought two things:

thought one: i don’t want none of this shit anymore.
thought two: why am i bringing all of this into a life that already feels different?

…so i started throwing things away.
a lot of things that i just didn’t need or care for anymore. .
somewhere,
i’m sure,
a dumpster diver had the greatest weekend of their life.
underneath the clutter was something more interesting:

so much of what i held onto wasn’t useful anymore.
i was keeping it because it reminded me of something,
represented some old version of me,
or came with that dangerous little phrase: “just in case.”

…and that made me wonder how often we do this beyond closets and storage units.
we keep clothes we don’t wear,
objects we don’t use,
relationships we’ve outgrown,
dick that don’t satisfy us anymore,
and habits that stopped serving us years ago,
all because maybe,
someday,
somehow,
we might need them again.
if life keeps moving and we keep evolving,
at what point does “just in case” stop being preparation…

…and start becoming junk?