Ew, stuff

When Mike and I first got married and I was complaining to my mother about moving she told me that she and my dad moved just about every four months. I couldn't believe it. And I told her I could never do that. I wanted to find an apartment in Provo that we could last in for a year or two.

So here we are, married just over two years, and preparing to move for the fifth time. And we're moving to Italy in September. And then probably someplace else for an internship. And then to DC after that. I'm learning again and again to "never say never" because you'll always end up doing what you could "never" do. Like getting married at 20. Or having a baby in college. Or moving basically every four months. (But I wouldn't change any of it for the world. Okay, maybe the moving part).

The thing about moving is that you realize how much crap you have. And even though I feel like we take box after box to D.I. every time we move, we still seem to have so. much. STUFF. STUFF! I hate STUFF.

One thing I have yet to throw away after 18 months of moving it from one apartment to the next is this pile of ticket stubs, receipts, programs, sketches, maps, Metro Cards, and younameits in a sack from the Apple Store in SoHo. It's full of STUFF from Mike and my first summer together; living in the District without a car, without parents and without money. It was awesome.

But for how awesome it was, is it really worth toting around this STUFF? I've always intended to put together some sort of book that has pictures, all these things, maybe some blog posts or journal entries (wait, that is sounding dangerously close to a scrapbook) but it hasn't happened so far and what will I do with it once it does? KEEP TOTING MORE STUFF AROUND. Right.

A (large) part of me wants to throw it all away. Especially now that we know we're headed back and our Metro Cards will be a far-cry from a keepsake (nor will the tickets we got for not paying on toll roads. Who knew the toll roads are stuck in the 18th century and don't accept Debit cards? And who knew how much change you had to bring to get back from Boston...We owe the state of New York something like 3 dollars...) Plus. That's the purpose of a blog right? It's like a memory book you never have to pack.

But another part of me is too nostalgic. Like "Awe, how could I toss the little American flags they gave us to wave on the Fourth of July? or the Why Did This Skunk Have to Die pamphlet?"

Maybe I should be democratic about this. To toss? or not to toss?