What's in Your Closet?

I'm moving in two weeks, and I haven't started packing yet.

It's too bad I can't clone myself so that I can make my clone do all the work for me. And possibly arm-wrestle the people who put their cell phone conversations and iTunes playlists on speakerphone in public.

I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff. I gave away several bags of clothes (the ones without holes in them) to the Salvation Army, because I'd had some of the clothes for years. I guess tie-dyed shirts and overalls aren't going to come back in style anytime soon.

I also sold some of my books to a used bookstore. They took my Shakespeare anthology, but apparently no one else wants to read N'Sync's autobiography (don't ask me why I have two copies), which is about all five of the members but is less than a hundred pages. And no one wants to read scholarly nonfiction books with highlighted passages and my notes in the margins that say stuff like, "I can't TAKE this anymore! Footnotes are the work of the devil!"

I've been going through my other belongings and trying to figure out what to keep and what to throw away, because I'm moving from a one-bedroom apartment to a studio. I thought about selling some of my furniture, but my ten-year-old desk is chipped in several places from where I banged my hands (and occasionally, my head) down in frustration. One of the chairs in my kitchen broke when the friend of a friend sat on it, though both friends claimed that the chair was already broken (right). I can't get rid of my two bookcases, because there are already too many stacks of books on the floor.

I have pots and pans that I haven't used since the last time I set off my smoke detector and nearly set my clothes on fire. Normal thirty-year-olds are able to follow recipes and cook food that people can eat without immediately spitting it out, but I just can't seem to get it right.

I still have my poster of Orlando Bloom as Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, even though I didn't like him as much after I saw his performance in Troy. (After I saw his portrayal of Paris, I couldn't help thinking, Jeez. What a girl. But then again, I've always been Team Hector.)

I also still have the first gift I ever received from a boy, a small stuffed lizard that he gave me after he took me to a high school dance. I'm not throwing that out. I'm also not throwing out all the pictures of old friends from high school and college, even though I haven't seen most of them in years. Whenever I want to remember what it was like to be sixteen or twenty-one, I look at those pictures.

I started writing regularly in journals when I was in the fourth grade. I still have all those journals. I'm not throwing those out either, partly because I don't want to let go of what I wrote. I also have this fear that someone's going to go through the garbage, find my journals, and post copies of them on the Internet under the heading "What Not to Write".

My small DVD collection is mostly made up of romantic comedies, partly because I can't watch horror movies without covering my eyes and shrieking, "Why would you go into the woods when you know that an ax-wielding serial killer is in there, you fool?" It's also because even though I know that guys in real life aren't like the leading men in romantic comedies (and I'm no leading lady, especially because I hate shopping for shoes and I can't put on makeup without looking like I was blindfolded when I put it on), the movies still give me hope that I could have my own happy ending someday.

What about you? What do some of your possessions say about you? Which ones would you throw out, and which ones would you keep?