Having just sold an entire room full of stuff, or as much as I had the courage to get rid of, I now feel very committed to this move even if I’m still not sure that I have a full realization of what conditions I’m about to get into. It’s begun to dawn on my that I’m spoiled by the hot showers I take, the ability to get chocolate, overnight delivery of online shopping, clean water (relatively), accessible and mostly reliable medical care, etc. I’m not entirely there yet though, as I’m still very much caught up in the tasks of clearing loose ends.
I’m looking forward to the lack of some of these things as I think a part of me is thinking about this trip as a spoon full of sugar that will help me rock my boat. I need to shake things up to break some bad habits and look through the cobwebs. Of late I feel as if I’m to self-interested and not quite self-directed enough, so this tangent is a bit of self-medication.
Actually I think my weekend garage sale’s also been a good bit of psychological medicine. I had to face the truth behind how sentimentality and history with stuff (and people) dictates our expectation and value. Item history and emotional attachment is something that buyers don’t see, but makes it really hard to part with stuff like my bike. I bought a fixed gear track bike when I came to DC. Rode it year round, put sweat, blood, and money into it, and loved the shape I was in because of it. This isn’t what they see when a potential seller looks at the bike, but while I was haggling, it felt like I was selling a piece of my soul. Yet it’s a bunch of, steel, aluminum and rubber…
So you can see I spent the weekend considering loss aversion, lack of practice at haggling, while dealing with the first really hot days here in DC, both that were long days, as well as some unexpected hitches in a room replacement, all of which have me physically and mentally exhausted.
Still I am very happy though to have a mostly empty room, as it means I have the week to clean up stuff and hopefully be ahead of the curve. Several steps closer to being ready to getting the next dose in my self-medicated treatment.
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