"I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"

Invariably, as moving time around our house approaches — a process with which we're becoming intimately familiar — I start to more closely examine my relationship with our possessions, determining whether I can really live without some of the stuff that we've been lugging around for years — Connor not (yet) included.

In reality, I am probably the exact opposite of a pack rat, or hoarder, but I don't feel that way at all, even though we're travelling nearly as lightly as possible this year, with most of our stuff in storage, including 99 percent of our furniture. I feel like any attachment to an inanimate object constitutes reason enough to sever ties with said item. If I keep one thing, what's to stop our house from being overrun with junk? Or worse, knick knacks! The horror.

I once blew up at Stacey because I believed that every single flat surface of our house in Alabama had something on it. Our stuff was suffocating me, or so I thought. I'm on medication now, thankyouverymuch.

Most of what we brought with us this year I've already packed up in anticipation of our move, which is still more than two weeks away. I may have been asked to leave the Boy Scouts, but I do like to be prepared.

Stacey thinks I've flipped my lid — especially since I've packed a majority of Connor's clothes and toys, although it's mostly winter wear and junk he rarely plays with anymore. But, as sure as I'd tape up a box and label it appropriately, he'd ask for one of the very toys that had just been pulled from the regular rotation.

If you'll pardon me, I have a stack of boxes to hunt through so that I can find a certain book that Connor probably won't even touch when, and if, I do find it.

Life in a monastery suddenly makes much more sense to me. Those guys know how to travel light.