If there is one overarching, all-encompassing and as yet unanswered question regarding all my adventures over the past several months it is this: What am I supposed to do with all my crap?

When I left Korea last August I stored the bulk of my belongings with two friends in Itaewon. The rest I either packed up and took with me or simply abandoned. I had some good shit too. Whoever got my apartment got some good stuff.

Once I got to Portland I re-visited some of my crap that has been in storage with some friends since I first left the US over five years ago. Some of it I got rid of, like the brass table lamp that seemed so precious in 2002 but that in the intervening years I'd forgotten I'd even owned. Some of it I moved from one place to another. Then there were a few things I took out, fondly remembered, and put back until the next visit, when I am likely to do the same thing again.

At my parents place in Arizona I dropped off a bunch of crap I acquired during my travels that I wanted to keep but that I don’t need to have around me on a day-to-day basis, like ticket stubs from the Bolshoi, and some of the “we love you teacher” notes I’ve gotten from students in various classes.

Also in Arizona, I participated in what has become a regular ritual during my visits home: going through my old stuff one more time and throwing away more of it. It’s amazing how as the years go by less and less of it becomes important. Things like letters and pictures are always automatic keepers, if for no other reason than that letters written on paper are such a quaint little throwback to the last century. Other things however, like the Scritti Politti cassette I bought for a dollar in 1994, I’m not so sentimental about. Into the Goodwill pile it goes. It was also fun giving away clothing that has suddenly become too big for me.

All-in-all, I reduced the net volume of crap I have stored at my parents from around four medium sized boxes to two. Along the way I did get a whole bunch more new stuff (But I really NEEDED it, don’t you see?) and ended up worrying about going over the airline luggage limits. I had no idea what I was in for. I’ve already recounted my China Airlines baggage saga, so I won’t go into it again here, but it’s just another example of how unmanageable (there’s that word again!) my stuff has gotten.

There is a price to be paid for this kind of life. There is a choice to be made. If you want to travel and be unattached, you have to either learn to travel light, or accept that you are going to have a more or less constant problem of what to do with your crap. You can pay extra to lug it around with you, burden your friends and family with it, or just abandon parts of it periodically to lighten your load.

Hey, wait a minute! It almost feels like I could extrapolate that into a larger statement about life and relationships…

Nah…guess not...

Labels: The life of Brian, travel