I have a relatively small thing to do. I have to move my things into a flat which is two rooms. My things are quite a jumble but they only take up one room and yet it feels like an insurmountable task. Every time I go into my room to think about getting started, how to get the books off the shelves.. what to do with all the clothes.. how to move the plants... I feel like crying. I have been throwing lots of things out over the last few months. I can spend an entire day just sifting through papers and getting rid of them but there is still so much stuff left. Most of the content of the room is paper. Our whole lives can also exist in the form of sheets of paper so sorting through them can be a strange and uneasy task of facing oneself. Photographs, letters, bills, pay slips, diaries. Even if we try to be very minimal and not to hoard, things always have a way of creeping in to our lives. I suppose the paper aspect will slowly change the more things become digitised. Which is good in a way as less waste, less stuff, less sorting but perhaps also less likelihood of finding things by chance which might serve a touching or useful or interesting purpose through memory. I think I have done a few of these big hauls already this year and maybe wrote about the last one, so I've been spending too much time in nostalgia and maybe that's making me gloomy. The clocks went back on Sunday so it's pitch dark by 5pm and it's going to get darker still. It's a weird, cold, dark time. Though having said that the sun is shining outside on all the beautiful golden leaves so I should go outside. Ah but I should pack!! The really ridiculous thing about it is I'm only moving 20 minutes up the road and the flat has been ready for nearly a year. What's wrong with me?!
