Memorial Day Process Report

In the words of Jon Bongiovi:“Oh,oh. We’re half way there. Oh,oh. Living on a prayer.”They were wise words in the 1980s and they are just as wise today. I started this blog back in February to track my journey of examination and elimination. Now,four months later this blog has seen some more reflection,some bellybutton gazing,some sharing my home with visitors from Comic Book Resources,and lots and lots of photos of books and bookshelves.

The last month has seen fewer blog entries as I have been working over time on the process of actually getting rid of these belongings that I’ve been examining for so long. I first mentioned the great Weed back in earlky March (see “Weeding Round One“) and even after making the decision to get rid of these items,and pulling all those books and comics,I still had to do something with them. So it has been evenings full of photographing and organizing and grouping and describing and listing on Ebay. At first it was incredibly daunting,but luckily I found a piece of software that made my life a little easier. But now I’ve got new auctions going up five nights a week,with anywhere between 60 and 100 listings up at any given time. It’s taking up a lot of my free time in the immediate,but hope to be through the busy period within the next month and have that much more of my life back.

But there is progress. As of the end of last week (from March 14th through May 19th),with all the pieces that have gone out I have sold the following through EBay:

• 1,084 Comic Books
• 209 Graphic Novels &Tradepaperback Collections
• 32 Mini-comics
• 10 Magazines
• 26 volume of Manga

Plus through Amazon Marketplace an additional

• 28 Graphic Novels &Tradepaperback Collections
• 1 volume of Manga

I don’t know if it seems like a lot or seems like a very small amount. I still see so much around this apartment,I still feel so trapped by belongings. It is like the early days of a diet where you know you are losing weight,but don’t feel it yet. I know I’ll hit the “cheek bones”and “belt notch”phase soon,but it doesn’t feel I’m there yet.

But one big sign of progress is the reclamation of space. Back in January,the “library”looked like this:

A room full of things…Now however,it is reclaimed as a “living”space. So this is now the new “guest room”:

Two bookcases and a shortbox shelf gone and a bed added,with some white space on the walls. Plus,check out the awesome sheet my Mother found:

Comic strip sheets and Star Wars pillows. It’s a themed hotel room! But most of all,living space where once it was nothing but storage space.

So the project is not near the end,but hopefully once I finish the current batch I can take a break and do another examination of what is in my life at that point and continue the process. But as long as I can make decisions that change decisions moving forward,I won’t have to go through all this again in another year or so.