The Great Purge

My last day at work is today and it feels strange. I vacillate from feeling excited for my new adventures and being anxious that I don't have a job or schedule! I'm usually a planner- an organized machine. Going rogue and wandering aimless for a few months is a little scary for me. But, I'm trying to embrace the experience.

One thing I'm doing my first week of vacation is to organize everything I own. I call this 'The Great Purge'. I have too much junk that I've collected over the years and it's time to downsize. I need to sublease my city apartment anyway (San Francisco rent is insane and I can't waste the money on a place I won't be living in for a few months). So, I'm starting my vacation with cleaning and organizing everything! What fun!

I've been inspired by this book I read a few weeks ago called, "The life-changing magic of tidying up". It sounds like a paradise for anyone with OCD and it is! This book is crazy, genius, bizarre, and wonderful. The author includes tidbits of wisdom like........

"In essence, tidying ought to be the act of restoring balance among people, their possessions, and the house they live in."

"One theme underlying my method of tidying is transforming the home into a sacred space, a power spot filled with pure energy."

"Put your house in order and discover what you really want to do."

She basically says that if you have to buy storage and organization bins, then you're doing it wrong. Once you put something in storage, you'll never use it again. Get rid of anything that doesn't bring you joy. That's the ultimate test. Joy.

I started with one of the most difficult categories for me......my boxes of music. I have heavy boxes of sheet music that I've carried around with me for years. Since I studied music performance (twice) in college, I'm very attached to my music! I have memories of playing the Mozart G Major Flute Concerto at a competition. I still see the indecipherable scribblings of my favorite flute teacher in the margin. A symbol that looks like a skiwampus crescendo....a bunch of circles in the shape of a bullseye.....1,2,3 go!

This music has crazy emotional connections for me, but I haven't played a majority of it in years. And I will probably never play the Chant de Linos flute concerto by Andre Jolivet. Or the piccolo concerto by Lowell Liebermann. Or learn circular breathing from a book by Robert Dick. They have youtube videos for that now.

Time to say goodbye to my once-beloved music (or anything else in my life) that no longer brings me joy. I'll keep my favorite pieces, of course, but that'll be limited to a small box. Goodbye, my dear, tattered, well-loved music. Time to move on.