Letting Go: The Return of the Bookshelf

What is it that possesses some of us to hang on to our past? To keep material memoires of that past time that we never look at and probably never will again? If you are not one of these people, then you are lucky. If you are, you will know exactly what I mean.

From what the headers tell me, this is my third letting go blog. I wish I could say that is my last but, alas, my growth has only just begun. I am still working on the study and still have not finished the filing. My attention last night was once more drawn to the full wall bookshelf that I had once thought would solve all of my problems with where to put the numerous books I have accumulated over the years. The shelf was filled to overflowing years ago and hasn't been touched since. There are still books all over the rest of my house so it was time to take a new look at this shelf and see just what was on it.

The first thing to go was my whole collection of Stephen King books. I think that every book he had written was housed there and took up about one full length of shelf. As much as I enjoyed them, I was probably not going to read those books again. At least, no where as far in the future as I can currently see. I wanted to keep The Stand which is my favorite and I will probably read again but it was not there. I had probably loaned it to someone and it wasn't returned.

Next, went all of the Anne Rice books and the Patricia Cornwell books. A few other odd books were added in and the total came to 3 boxes which I carted off to Book Buyers and will learn the fate of at 9:20PM tonight. Will they give me cash (my sincere hope), a store credit or the books back (lets hope not).

That task being completed, I started attacking the assorted other items of reading material on the shelfs. Out went my class notes from my MBA program (completed 1988), my study notes from completing my CFA (1994) and the various updates on financial standards that I have received since then but with the changes to the accounting standards in the last couple of years are no longer valid. That cleaned out one whole side of the shelf.

The shelves on the other side of the room yielded Chemistry and Biology books from 1976-80. Things have changed a lot since them. I couldn't sell those books but not wanting to throw books away, I put them in a box in the garage and hope to find some place that may be interested in them (a stock department for television or movies, perhaps?) If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

And, believe it or not, the shelf is still full even after all of that removal. However, the room does feel a little lighter and I feel as if a heavy burden I didn't even know I was carrying around has been lifted. Some day, I hope this room can become a conducive place to read, paint and work at my computer and desk. As of now, it is still more of a storage room.

Well, back to the bookshelf.