Packing and Sorting and Moving and Packing and Moving Some More...

I was well aware that my life was going to change.

Five weeks ago, I finalised the twelve-month lease for my condominium. Three days before that, I purchased a one-way ticket to São Paulo, Brazil. On July 20th, I walked into my boss' office and gave him my four-week's notice. But all of this was in the abstract. A lease agreement, plane ticket and letter of resignation won't in and of themselves change ones life -- they're just pieces of paper.

Sitting in my living room, at three o'clock in the morning, with the move scheduled for later this evening, boxes everywhere and the rest of the apartment looking like a storeroom exploded, is not abstract. In fact, it's pretty much the exact freaking opposite.

In nine days, all I need for life will have to fit into a backpack.

I suppose that I could ask myself the question, "How in the Hell did I get all this stuff?", but that would be a cop-out -- like I came home one day and all this stuff was just beamed into my apartment by aliens. I know exactly how I got all it: I'm a disorganised pack-rat who never bothered to either sort through my belongings, or throw anything out. It's weird -- when it comes to my electronic files, I have a obsessive compulsion to anally organise everything. My financial spreadsheets are balanced down to the penny; all my photographs are organised by date, time, location and progress within my work-flow; my writing is referenced and archived. Everything is just so.

It's the complete opposite with my physical possessions.

The lesson here is that I desperately needed to simplify. Half of my clothes, I haven't worn in years. And why in the Hell do I need birthday cards from when I was twelve? Or all of these books, DVDs and CDs? Or computer games from the early nineties on 3.5-inch floppies that I can't even read.

I wish I'd started this process much, much earlier. I know half of what I'm moving, I don't really need, and will have to be sold, given away or chucked when I get back. But for now, it will just sit in Ken and Kathy's basement.

Good thing they have a large basement. Because I'll need enough space for the equivalent of fifty backpacks.