On crap, less crap, and keeping out the crap

A friend of a friend of a friend (twice removed) had their condo burn down a few weeks ago.  I thought this was totally bizarre:  it's 2008, what burns down other than dilapidated old warehouses in Philadelphia or the California brush anymore?  Isn't that sort of an 1840's type problem? (I asked if the 'fire brigade' was called and if it was pulled by horses.  I'm kind of a dick)  Apparently Jersey likes to keep it real and real flammable.

It got me to thinking--if my apartment burned down tomorrow (and considering the condition of the building I live in this seems entirely plausible; I'm a key player in the House Burning Down trifecta) there is nothing I would miss except for maybe the Barbie and the Rockers hot pink nail polish I wear sometimes and haven't been able to find again.  Besides that I could walk away and not look back.

NOTE:  This is entirely different than the time in the Detroit airport on my way to Las Vegas in February when I sat at 3AM by the baggage carousel and wept because no one could find my luggage.  That was a matter of necessity, of expense, of being in Detroit.  Don't discount that last one.  It's a pretty big deal.

There would be things I would be inconvenienced by losing: one or two pairs of shoes, my makeup and my ridiculously expensive 'rape of the rainforrest' shampoo, pots and pans.  Not even my huge bookshelf, the laptop, or the Desktop That Is Dead to Me make the list.  A monetary inconvenience does not really equate to loss loss.  I live in a perpetual state of monetary inconvenience, this would really be nothing new.

I used to spend so much time collecting, organizing, arranging, and cataloging crap that I thought was important to me or induced nostalgia like a punch to the throat.  It's exhausting to carry that weight and having to set controlled fires just to find the things that are actually important instead of the importance you project on them.  I once had a boyfriend tell me "You surround yourself with crap because you think you are crap."  I'm not sure if or when I stopped thinking that--but I am out of crap.  100% out.  Out of old shampoo bottles, mix tapes I can't play, cables to devices I don't own and probably won't replace any time soon, envelopes addressed to me to remind me of the contents, vitamins that make me sick, essays with professor comments I'll never re-read, etc.  They don't own me anymore.

More importantly, I was too exhausted through the last 5 moves (one per the last five years) to keep carting it all around with me and purged it significantly in the last three.  When discussing this I was going to say that there were some cards and letters and pictures I would miss but even that would have been a lie.  There aren't any anymore and those that may float around I haven't looked at for ages.  My priorities now mostly lie with nailpolish and how I'd get to work.  I've either come a long way or not very far at all--it's tough to say.

The trick will be if I decide to live in good ol' 4th and Stabbytown for a second or a third year, whether or not the crap will start to build up or whether or not I've finally kicked the habit.  I suspect I may have but without real-world experience it's tough to say; I was browsing for K'Nex set on eBay earlier because I had a really bangin' idea for a windmill.  Some habits really die hard.