Letting Go

Never got a chance to post yesterday. I worked my butt off yesterday transferring the stuff from my old house's attic to my new house, and it was a six-hour ordeal that left me physically exhausted. Fortunately I had some help, but it was still a ton of stair climbing and carrying boxes and lots of time in a very hot, sauna-like attic. There was lots of sweating, lots of water drinking, and lots of hoping it would soon be over.

Today I have to go through the boxes I didn't take to the attic and go through them for the old give away/throw away/keep process. I am regularly horrified at the amount of stuff I've collected in my relatively short life, and for the past seven years I have been doing my best to slowly minimize the clutter in my life.

I know in the last month I have rid myself of a ton of clothes from my fatter days, as well as piles of my daughter's clothes that are now too small. It's frightening how many pieces of clothing we've amassed, especially my daughter. But for the first five years she had one Grandma who bought all kinds of clothes for her, and now she has two, and the newer one seems to have taken the lead in this contest.

And books! I have so many books, and as I begin to go through the boxes intending to rid myself of most of them, when I look at them it pains me to think of giving them away. But let's face it: there are very, very few I'll ever read again, and instead of them collecting dust on a shelf or moldering in some cardboard box, doesn't it make more sense to pass them on for someone else to enjoy?

You could say it's a lot like weight: it's so easy to collect it, but oh so hard to get rid of it. The same thing goes for old beliefs and behaviors. Once a certain thought or habit gets ingrained in our heads, it's pretty difficult to change them and make new ones stick.

Another good thing about yesterday's hard work (other than finally completing a project I've been procrastinating over) was that it didn't give me time to even think about binge eating. I definitely ate, but I was too preoccupied and later too tired to even consider doing it compulsively or emotionally. Not that I always want to work that hard every weekend, but it does illustrate that when I'm idle my thoughts turn to food to entertain myself.

So let's hope today's project keeps me busy enough to bypass any binge thoughts, too. Because for every weekend I can go binge-free, it's another step toward making new, healthier habits and another step further in recovery. And maybe I'll have less stuff in my house, too!