The Things We Keep

Now that my move is finished, I am sorting through a few lingering boxes of things.

The statement that I’ve heard the most from my family and friends, and the one that made me the most frustrated and defensive, which was, “You have too much stuff.”

To be clear at the start – my space is the most organized space in the house. I make sure that everything has a spot to live and that it makes sense to me. But, they were right. I do have a ton of things – mainly books.

The reason I was frustrated whenever I heard the aforementioned statement was because these books were not all purchased in one giant lump. These books were collected over many years. Going through all of them, I am drawn to them each again. Ones that I forgot about, even ones that I never finished. I will stop and look through them. Of course there are some that I am going to get rid of just because I will never read them again, but the ones that I keep have an importance in my collection.

Don’t these books give off creative energy? I think so. Even when I carry a book around with me that I don’t even get a chance to read, I feel like it gives off a sort of energy that I find inspiring and comforting. If I needed an escape, the story is there.

It will be hard to go through my library and figure out which books I can part with, but I know that the ones that I keep aren’t just stacks of paper on a shelf. They are worlds, both fictional and non, that I can escape back to whenever I need a break from reality.