Argument

M and I are arguing. It, unsurprisingly, has to do with the big move.

After I got home with A from my parents’ house yesterday evening, I thought that everything would be great. I mean, I had just wowed an interview committee, been offered a new position (right where we wanted me to), and accepted it on the spot. And things were great, for about an hour.

We discussed our current plans and objectives for moving, including selling our current house, finding new house within our budget, our new financial situation, and our plans for packing. It was all good until we started talking about our packing.

We went to the basement and were talking about the various piles we have and what needs to be done still, which is a lot. We came to the “Donate” pile and were talking about plans to go to Goodwill to drop things off. As it stands, it will take at least two trips to the donation center to get rid of it all. That was when she made the remark that the current donation pile was pretty much all hers and the boys’. She gave me a “gentle nudge” (her words) that I should get rid of more of my things.

I couldn’t help but take it personally. I think it was something about the way that M said it, more than anything; she sounded almost exactly like her sister (whom I have had a complicated relationship with for years). M was just talking last week about how we couldn’t have her sister come up and help with the move, because she would just throw everything away; and now here she was, implying that I do just that.

Yes, I have a lot of games (both video and board) and a lot of books, and they take up a lot of space. I don’t have much else, though. Honestly. The space that they take up is my space. M almost never goes into the basement, where the vast majority of those things are kept. She has spent more time in the basement the past two weeks than she probably has over the 12 years that we’ve lived in this house. Yes, I am taking this “downsizing” personally. Am I being unreasonable, though? I’m truly not sure.

Those things give me pleasure. They hold years and years of memories for me. When I look at one of my books, I can remember exactly where it came from, where I was in my life when I got it, who gave it to me, when I read it for the first time, and so much more. It is hard for me to say goodbye to all of that. I don’t have scrapbooks or photo albums to remember my past; I have books and games, instead.

I think that she hates the games more than the books, though. They serve a very similar purpose for me, though. When I look at a game in my collection, I can remember all of the good times that I had playing with friends who are now long gone (out of my life, not dead). I remember parts of myself that have been lost. Playing through Mega Man 3 on my NES reminds me of a simpler time and a simpler me. Part of my lost innocence is within that cartridge, and I don’t feel that I should be shamed into giving it up.

Well, I ended up acquiescing. I went through and stuffed four boxes full of books, discs, games, and other various things (this was in addition to the three that I had already taken and donated). We barely talked the rest of the evening.