Views from my neighborhood.

Yesterday I had a breakthrough moment. During the endless hours of unpacking boxes, I realized I could let go of stuff. Lots of stuff. We are setting up our new home in Arizona after escaping the high cost of living in California. This wasn’t easy because my husband is third generation and I’ve lived in CA for 36 years after leaving my home state of Washington.

I got rid of sweatshirts that I’ve had for years, including ones from my kids momentous swim meets and a trip to Ireland. My biggest breakthrough was letting go of my DVD player and hundreds of DVDs and VHS tapes. I called my daughter and asked her if she minded. We have the complete Seinfeld and I Love Lucy DVDs. She looked it up and they are all on Hulu. “Let them go,” she said.

I had second thoughts of tossing my videos from ultrasounds of my babies in the womb. But, I haven’t looked at them in twenty plus years. There are also Nutcrackers when my son and I performed, plus underwater swim videos of my kids at USC swim camp. But I tossed them all. After all, I don’t have a VHS player and forgot all about these tapes.

I texted my son and asked if I could toss a stack of awards he had from St. Theresa’s, his elementary and middle school. “Please!” he texted back.

I’ve put away plenty of things that we need and will make life comfortable. Then I looked at all the boxes and wondered how will cluttering up a new house going to feel? Today, I’m elated I could finally let go. I’ve got more to toss today and tomorrow. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted and I feel 20 pounds lighter.

The view of quail from the Casita window this morning. Earlier, I watched a huge coyote stop outside the fence and we stared at each other for a few minutes.

Do you still own DVDs and VHS tapes? If you do, do you ever watch them? Do you have trouble letting stuff go?