Four shortboxes of comics pulled for disposal.
Well,I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon this past weekend beginning the weeding process going through my short boxes:the actual comic book collection. The great cull has begun…and I’m loving it.
This was just a first round and was mean to serve two purposes:to clean and to,basically,to just get the process moving. And it worked. I made it through the entire collection of comics,starting to pull for sale and putting away all the random pieces from around the house. And made some psychological steps down this road to a new life.
By the end of the afternoon it felt like I had made a lot of process. I pulled approximately four short boxes worth of comics to get rid of,including one that I planned to put up for E-Bay on Sunday. Assuming a short box holds between 150 and 175 comics that meant I was pulling around 680 comics to sell. It felt like I had done a lot of good. But then,I took another look into the “library”and felt a little less positive. To see what I mean,continue reading after the jump…
This is where I started…
The "library"before:approximately 29 short boxes.
And this is where I was after the first afternoon of weeding…
The "library"after:Approximately 24 short boxes.
Wow,that doesn’t look like much of a change. Progress,but more work to do. It didn’t solve my problem,but what it did do was to give me a taste. A taste for the weed!
This was the easy round. The pulls this time didn’t address any deeper issues of nostalgia or “collecting.”It felt like I was cutting deep,but this was just scraping off the top layer of scum. The easy layer. But when I reflected at the end of the day I realized where I needed to go next. I needed to actually weed,to cut so it hurt. To actually pull the things out that some part of my mind might feel are important to keep,important to the collection. I needed to kill the very concept of collection.
Sitting down at the end of it all felt good. I kind of like this process of getting rid of things–of clearing up my life. This was only a tiny first step but it felt right. Now was the time to go back and pull the runs. The Justice League run or the Power Pack run,maybe even the original Jamie Delano Hellblazers. Time to really sit back and decide that I don’t need these things in this form any more.
Now I can’t wait to find more time to get back and do more. I also realize,now,that even beyond the psychological effort this is going to be a lot of physical work. Just doing the work to divide,describe,and list the 22 auctions that I put up this week took over four hours on Sunday,and I spent over two hours tonight just packing up the Alter Egos and Write Now!s that I had for sale from the previous week. Straight Ebay may not be the answer here. I may need move to the selling in bulk phase much quicker than I first thought. Try to sell longer runs and groups I think will sell,but then either try to sell local or in big boxes.
And it is spreading. I’m mentally moving on to other weeds. I want to start getting rid of DVDs and old clothes. I want to downgrade or cancel my eMusic subscription. I can’t even imagine buying new CDs or movies right now. I want to start taking in less and keeping less. I’ll never be able to move over to an itinerant,possession-less lifestyle,with must my copy of Watchmen and From Hell in my bindlestick. Its just not in my nature or my genes;I’ll always be a gatherer to some extent. But I can certainly work to keep things down to a more reasonable level. One where,when I get new things,I feel like I want them. Like they mean something.
Heck,I lost fifty pounds,lets see if I can lose a couple hundred or so more.