I moved two weeks ago yesterday.  It was a signficant move because it was my first home purchase and marked the end of a process that took well over a year.  I now have more space and the opportunity to design, decorate and paint as I see fit.  I also now have to do what all people who move dread doing, which is letting some things go. 

 If I had to describe the decorative motif of my previous apartment, Overflow Book is the term that best comes to mind.  It was a 600sq ft unit that had books throughout the front and in one corner of the bedroom.  As I packed each and every book that was in that apartment to transport to my new space, I felt like Charlton Heston holding on to his shotgun at an NRA gathering.  The only way I was going to part from any of these books was if they "pry them from my cold bare hands."  Ok, that's not true, but that is the impression that I gave off as I placed book after book into a box knowing full well that chances are slim that I would ever return to some of them--but since there were still a chance--they deserved to come along to the new place.  I should also note that I have a more altruistic vision for where my books will end up, but that is neither here nor there because this post is not really about my books, but my desk.  My old desk.

My former desk saw a lot.  We did a lot together.  Term papers, a dissertation, a memoir, countless blogs posts and well over a million emails.  It helped me entertain friends and family, and its simplicity-a countertop placed atop two filing cabinets-amazed many a visitor.  My old desk was also too short and too long, and once I started affixing stickers to the filing cabinets, they inherited a dorm room quality that could never be dismissed.   My old desk was the only thing I knew that had to go. 

Books I wouldn't read, an old worn out blender that had already been replaced, and countless other tchotkes were coming with, but a desk that I needed and which I had-and still do not have a clear replacement for-had to go.  I even took along the desk chair that was likely the real source of my discontent, but not the desk.  

To be continued....