One of the leading indicators that Diana is enduring excessive stress or anxiety is that she gets into extreme fits of organizing and cleaning. I guess it's kind of a charm, but I find myself asking, "What's wrong," if it isn't already obvious. For her, I think it's the classic thing where you try to exert come control when you feel like you don't otherwise have any. For me, it's something else.
I've been on this kick the last few days of purging things. It started simple enough. I have a desk drawer that was full of old cables and things that I would never likely need again. There were things like a 15-foot VGA cable, countless Apple "dock connectors" that fit only the old iPad no on uses, USB A to B cables that I don't think fit anything I actually own anymore, and various short-run RG-6 cables with F connectors left by cable installers from the six moves we made inside of eight years. Something in my head realized that the things on my desk that we still use frequently, like memory card readers and mobile batteries, could find a home inside the drawer if it wasn't occupied by things I'll never use or need. So I chucked them.
Admittedly, part of the problem is that I hate the idea of these things landing in a landfill, and often the cost of recycling them is extreme enough that it's not worth trying to figure that out. There is an entire plastic tub of things like this in the garage, sitting below a tub of amusement park PR artifacts, posters and boxes from my current PC build, and I have no idea what's in there. I purged some of it years ago, when I found things like ISA cards for computers and SCSI cables.
Still, the things on my desk are now in the drawer. Then I turned attention to the file cabinet, where there were undoubtedly all kinds of ancient treasures that moved with me across 6,000 miles. Before everything went paperless, I filed away everything. So sure enough, I had checking account statements from the early oughts. I found a cut debit card from Bank One with Stephanie's photo on it (Bank One was eventually absorbed by Chase). Unfortunately, since I've had the same checking account for roughly 25 years, I had to shred all of that because the account number was on every page, coupled with every address I've had in that time. That was a bit laborious.
I generally keep gadget boxes for moving, because as I mentioned, I've moved a lot. But now there are some gadget boxes that will not likely ever see the products that were in them. I'm never going to take the WiFi switch in my kitchen with me. Who knows what else is in my cabinet, but I'm sure I can throw some of it away. I bet I have cell phone boxes from phones I traded in years ago. They've gotta go. I will, however, keep the big TV boxes in the garage. One of those is the reason I still have the same TV I bought 10 years ago.
I admit that I kept a lot of crap with me for a lot of years, but by the time I made that sixth move, I was traveling much lighter than I used to. Life is easier with less crap.
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