Simplify.

It seems like ever since I adopted this goal and moved it to the top of the pile, my life has gotten anything but simple. I’ve since been looking for jobs daily, berating myself for all sorts of real/imagined shortcomings, played therapist to myself, ended my contract at my last current job, put off my Boston plans until the new year, and reevaluated the entire inventory of my own thoughts.

Exhausting, to say the least.

And I can’t say with any honesty that it’s likely to get better any time soon. I’m still looking for work, but in the meantime, I spend most of my days alone and I sleep fitfully, I feel like I lack independence and that living back at home isn’t doing the things I’d hoped it would.

However, I’ve started taking Vitamin B supplements and Suntheanine in hopes that they’ll quietly and noticeably diffuse the stress I’m so horrible at dealing with. (I’m really bad at stress, even worse than an average person.) I’ve been imagining the last time I was truly and constantly happy and starting today, I’m looking to recreate or at least re-envision the circumstances (both internal and external) that led to/fostered that happiness.

This is going to be nothing akin to easy, but if I’m going to accomplish or even work on any of the goals listed beneath this one, I’ve got to feel more like my truest self and less like the angsty, immature 17 year old I was when I lived here last.

While I’m disappointed that my life crows considerably more complicated as I inch closer and closer to the move, I can’t help but notice the little changes that will eventually allow for a simplicity I’ve never had. I bought fleur-de-lis file folders and a little budget planner and I’m basically selling or giving away everything I’m not planning to take to Boston and in all of my daily imaginings, I keep picturing a kind of life wherein I’d be put-together, a fully legitimized member of society.

I realize that my life will be a little ragged around the edges for a while, that I’ll bounce from job to job and live from paycheck to paycheck until I’m really on my feet, but to keep things up to date, to keep my head above water, to not feel overwhelmed about my tasks but to have a game plan…a dream, truly.

One fulfilled soon! I hope..

I’ve donated or sold four or five boxes of books and I’ve boxed up tons and tons of belongings and held Round I of what feels like a never-ending travelling yard sale. I’m slowly decreasing my belongings one by one, though I still feel like I’ve just so much stuff to get rid of before I can make this move a reality.

Hopefully, with Round II coming up maybe this weekend, I can get another few boxes of nonsense out there for sale.

Next step? Ruthless purging of belongings and a stop or two at Good Will.

So I’ve begun. I’ve cleared away all of the books from my shelf that I know I won’t miss and I know I won’t read and I’ve gone through my closet and come up with a pretty substantial pile of clothes I don’t even like, but looking at the indentations that I’ve made, I still realize how much I have left to go. Will I ever really read Cosmopolis? Will I ever use The America Play for another paper? Am I keeping The Namesake because I want it or because I bought it at the Strand? If a book has sentimental value and if I know I’ll never come across it again, I’ll likely keep it and not feel guilty for it. However, I still need to get rid of a ton more stuff. How to even begin the second leg of this journey?

This will be a large, ongoing sort of goal, but for now, what I mean is this: I have accumulated a sort of mass of stuff…books I read in high school, books I was made to read in college and in grad school, clothes I thought I’d like, clothes I got for gifts that I knew I wouldn’t like, random sorts of decorations/candles/etc, that I just don’t need.

I want to have the belongings I need, the ones that I like, the ones that represent or mean something to me. I needn’t collect books because they’re books, essentially.

Plus, I’m moving to Boston and there is no sane, logical, rational, or synonymous reason for me to move all of this stuff when I really only want half of it.

So it’s BookMooch, half.com, Good Will, the Salvation Army, eBay, etc.

If I’m going to do it, I may as well start here.