Getting rid of things

Last August I worked from home a lot and got disgusted by the amount of stuff I had in my room that I didn't want.
I threw away:

• My wisdom teeth
• An empty bottle that had held sugar cane liquor from Kenya
• Old recipts

I had saved my wisdom teeth from when they'd been extracted earlier that year. What was I going to do with them? Show them off to house guests?

I had had a shelf at the foot of my bed that wasn't easily accessible; I had kept the books that I didn't actually want down there, but I gave those away. I gave away some old Star Wars books; I read a lot of Star Wars books when I was in middle school, but now I find them dull. I returned to Bookthing some books that I had grabbed without even leafing through, like The Jesus People, which had an ugly mottled pink cover and was not about the Jesus People movement but was instead about how radical Roman Catholic priests are, and I guess priests are pretty radical, but that was not what I was looking for.

Ever since I'd moved into that room, I'd kept some big flat things behind my dresser, but as I cleaned up, I:

• Nailed my cross to my door,
• Hung my dartboard on my closet door, and
• Taped up three posters of photographs from my big adventure.

I still had stuff I didn't need:

• A spare computer
• Two Airzookas
• Two jackets
• A pile of computer games I hadn't even tried yet (Most were ones I'd gotten from the thrift store for $1.98, but I'd paid $33 for one at a CompUSA liquidation sale and hadn't even taken off the shrink wrap.)

I still didn't know what to do with:

• A pile of cables
• A hacky sack
• Two spare yo-yos
• Some fidgety toys like a chain of keychains and a Slinky

I moved to the top closet shelf:

• Two boxes of envelopes (I had bought the second when I was at the store and thought I was out of envelopes but was not sure but figured it would be best to go ahead and get them to save a trip)
• A pirate hat (I don't dress up like a pirate anymore)

The impetus for this organization frenzy was getting rid of the second desk. I had had two desks in my room, and the second one was so conspicuously stifling that I couldn't notice all the other clutter in the room. Once I moved the desk to the basement, saving it for my brother, Spencer, all the little clutter was overpowering.

This happened when Todd had called our church to fasting. I was up until three in the morning on Saturday night, finishing cleaning my room. Sunday morning, Todd invited us to share thoughts about fasting and I told this story, about how I decided to get rid of things I didn't need and how getting rid of the desk helped me get rid of a lot of other things. I told about how fasting is sort of like that; when I fast, I feel like I'm doing something special, spiritually, but that just makes the parts of me that are bad more clearly bad and then I can fuss about them. After the service, Curt told me about how he wasn't sure what he would have done with extracted wisdom teeth, either.

I felt so much more restful in my room. I made a special reading corner with a butterfly chair and a rug made of carpet squares and duct tape. I had the perfect bedroom.

A couple of days later, Curt asked me to move into his house to house-sit for his family, long-term--they'd moved to Virginia rather abruptly. I moved in that Saturday.