What we NEED

When I was packing up the Woodinville house, I felt like I was pretty brutal in my decisions as to what we "absolutely, definitely would not have room for in Tonasket". I labeled several dozed boxes with the instructions such as "books we need but not right away-STORE" or "to sell in Tonasket". The latter means we did not need the item, but that I had failed to dispose of it intelligently prior to packing.

I am embarrassed to admit, we also brought a contingent of boxes labeled "misc. crap" These boxes contain the last things that were left in the home, many of which remained until last because they are necessities, but some of which were so so hideously useless they defied categorization. One of these MC boxes contained the following: 6 expensive cooking knives, a bottle of dish washing liquid, a stack of current bills, cat food, two bottles of Belikin beer from Belize, 5 dirty socks, a model of Galileo's thermometer that had been a family day gift several years ago, a screwdriver, 3 unidentified computer cords, an order from for Levi's graduation photo, a pillow that had lost it's shape and has been floating around the house for weeks being used as a weapon of assault by the kids, and a half empty jar of facial moisturizer...oh, and a dremel-like tool from the time I decided to try and do my own acrylic nails. These boxes defy categorization even now. Do we store them? Sort them? Burn them? Do they have priority of the dozens of boxes marked NEED, which were supposed to indicate the plethora of items that no Rainey could be without.
The front and back yard of the house are still piled with boxes, many of which are marked "NEED", and they silently mock me as I live longer and longer without the items inside them. A few boxes have been cannibalized as we sought one specific item that WAS truly needed. Mostly, though they sit silently waiting their placement in our museum of STUFF.

It gives me pause for thought at our pursuit of things and our attachment to them. Why are we driven to posses more items than we can actually use? Why do we need 45 shirts when 3 would give us a nice rotation without taking up the space? Why do I keep books, hundreds of books, most of which will never be read a second time? How could I have chosen to BUY the books rather than checking them out from the library where someone else could continue to store them for me and I could have spent the ten bucks on a nice shirt? Now I am faced with paying for space to store these hundreds (ok thousands) of books for Lord-knows-how-long, until we have home again that will contain them.