Next month will mark one year since we relocated to Colorado. The movers we had were truly terrible, both there and here, but on this end anyway, after being unable to account for several items, they dissembled the neatly stacked boxes in the 2nd bedroom in order to re-inventory then then did little better then haphazardly throw everything back in, leaving the room in unbelievable and overwhelming floor-to-ceiling chaos.

So I’ve wanted to organize this room for the past year knowing there are yet boxes of shoes, swim fins, cookware, etc. that we’ve been missing within, but typically upon opening the door have had to quickly shut it again as the boxes and perilously perched clutter seem hopelessly unmanageable and made me want to slump to the ground in despair.

Today I tasked myself with spending one hour (just 1 little hour!) on attacking whatever could be gone through in that time, perhaps just one square foot of taming the disarray. I spent longer. I had to. It was like unearthing a time capsule as I opened a box to find a travel bag not used in several years. Restaurant matchbooks from various travels in the outer pockets. Boarding pass stubs. An early days digital camera that has the pictures of the night several friends and I were magically granted access to the press tent in NYC for the Love Actually premiere. An old journal filled with thoughts and memories from the me of 15 years ago with dark, twirly doodles in the margins. A lovely picture of my folks at a hotel room in Miami back in maybe…1992? A metal tag from my sweet Ono’s first veterinarian. A small box that my first holy communion came in. A cat book someone had given us as a gift. Touching these artifacts of my life made me wistful. And grateful. For all the incredible places I’ve lived, the wonderful people I’ve loved and the love received in return. So yes, perhaps a tad overly sentimental but did manage to fill a box to throw away and take that single step of the thousand mile journey…