Well That’s a First

I felt “off” almost all day yesterday. From brushing my teeth in the morning through the drive home at night, something just wasn’t quite right. It nagged at the back of my mind until, while I was making supper, a thought occurred to me.

Before I go on, I offer a brief bit of history. I got my first pair of contact lenses in December of 1988. And, I’ve been wearing them everyday for the last twenty years (with rare exception).

With that in mind, when I came up with a hypothesis about my off-kilter day, I quickly dismissed it. I’m a contact pro; no rookie mistakes for me. But by the third time the idea popped into my head, I couldn’t dismiss it. I tested out my theory, and much to my own amusement, it was spot on.

I had spent the previous twelve hours with my contacts in the wrong eyes: right in left and left in right. Now thankfully, that was a first.

What Happened to Those 41 Items?

Last year this time I was lamenting about how much stuff I had. 147 items to be exact. That was when I made the grandiose goal of reducing my stuff by 5% each time I moved. With this wonderful target in site I made a few runs to my local Goodwill stores, and several runs to the dumpster.

Now I’m down to 106. Perhaps I went overboard. Or, more likely, the crew who packed my belongings to leave California did a much more thorough job than the crew who packed me to return. Leaving: each pair of shoes was wrapped in packing paper before being placed in a box. Returning: a large glass vase was wrapped in a single sheet of paper, then placed in the corner of a box holding a whole lot of other stuff. Suffice it to say, the shoes made it in better shape than the vase did.

I haven’t even attempted to start a charity pile this go around. It doesn’t necessarily feel like I have any less stuff than I did a year ago, but it also doesn’t seem like I have anything extra. (And foils to that day I sorted my closet in Stamford! I really wanted to wear a green shirt today that I apparently decided to donate to the local charity. Word to the wise: never make these kinds of decisions while under an unpacking deadline!)

So I think I’m done getting rid of things. I’ll always be a perpetual closet cleaner, but no more full carloads of stuff to donate. I’m too busy trying to figure out what I can wear in place of that green shirt.