I sometimes like to take key words from my blogs and look up the actual definition on dictionary.com, if only to prevent my daily misuse of the English language from embarassing me more than I already do. I looked up “purge,” and the first definition was what I was after… but then it got into some alternate and much more disturbing definitions, including Genocide and the evacution of one’s bowels. My post today, thank goodness, is about neither of them. Rather…

  1. To free from impurities; purify.
  2. To remove (impurities and other elements) by or as if by cleansing.

When people ask us how the house buying/selling/moving is going, we tell them that “we are in the process of purging.” As we go through this small 2-bedroom condo that we’ve lived in for the last 5 years, we are constantly amazed by how much “stuff” we’ve accumulated. We want this move to be a new beginning for us. A starting over point. The thought that we would take things that have been boxed in storage for years and simply move them to a new storage location at the new house just seemed pointless. And so, we purge.

We’ve been tearing through our storage area, a/k/a – garage and the rest of the house, to purge that which we no longer want, need or desire to make the move with us. This includes photos, knick-knacks, paperwork, old computer parts, even furniture. The pile of garbage bags at the end of our driveway for the last three weeks has been massive. I’m sure our sanitation workers appreciate me spreading it out over several weeks – rather than one huge pile that they can’t fit in the truck – but I’m sure they dread pulling around the bend to see what’s waiting for them each time. And we’re not tossing everything. We sold what we could at a garage sale in September, and have been donating that which is worth donating. Including clothes to our church’s homeless ministry and even my old car.

And so, as more stuff gets tossed out, we are left with the things that truly mean something to us. And now yesterday, as the purging is almost at an end, the packing phase has begun. We have boxes and plastic bins EVERYWHERE. Each with their own designation. Soon, they will be full and almost un-liftable.

The reward is, that when we arrive at our new house and begin unpacking these boxes and bins we won’t have to say “oh, just put that down in the basement for now.”

And so, we purge some more.