Moving and Stuff

First of all, let’s applaud the fact that today I am just saying no to my usual tendency to overthink blog post titles, since clearly this one was the product of 2.5 second’s thought at most. #FirstIdeaBestIdea

Now, onto the good news: By the end of the month, I will be in California, to live with my BFF!

Aaand the bad news: Most of my stuff will not be there with me.

I can check two bags on my flight. One of those bags must necessarily be my lute (because a wannabe minstrel never changes address without it). And I’m flying restricted economy, meaning there’s no room for a carryon bigger than a laptop case.

That leaves one suitcase of space for my worldly goods.

I am nonplussed.

“Now, now,” says the reasonable part of me. “Stuff is just stuff. Most of us can live with far less of it than we hoard. It’s people that matter.”

Quoth my less strictly reasonable side: “MY BOOKS ARE MY PEOPLE.”

Sure, I can get by on a fraction of my wardrobe. (Boots excluded! You better believe all my most awesome boots are coming with me.) The art on my walls can be grudgingly done without. Much of the miscellaneous junk accumulated over 29 years of life, I won’t miss.

But what about my personal library?? How can a place feel like home without my shelves upon shelves of novels! Short story collections! Tales behind the scenes of stage and screen! Not to mention the ridiculous number of books I’ve bought but haven’t gotten around to reading yet!

There’s no way I can take it all with me, just now. But how can I leave it behind?

“Speaking as someone who canonically escaped a world’s end with nothing but their lute,” says Allyn-a-Dale, with a sideways look for #BALLADofAaD, “you’ll live.”

“The lute, and the hat,” Will Scarlet adds. “And obviously Danielle will be taking her Allyn hat. And your Scarlet hat, too, right?”

Of course. Awesome hats are in the same category as awesome boots.

“There you are, then! With lute, hats, and the ever-present voice of your loved ones in your head, you’re off through the air to meet your best friend in a world unknown. Congratulations on your dream come true: You are basically turning into Allyn-a-Dale.”

“Except with a mother who picked up a couple boxes to ship some of your books after you,” Allyn points out.

All true, I suppose. If you can be brave and minimalist, I can strive to do the same. And if my story’s anything like yours where most it matters, then it will be well worth it.

*

THIS JUST EDITED IN: I might not actually be going to live in the house I thought, but instead in… a gloriously gorgeous, naturally magical, so-near-and-yet-so-far-from-the-BFF national park??? Which is arguably even more comparable to the Isle of Avalon, so the metaphor stands; I just can’t even with how unpredictable my life is, anymore.

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