Tomorrow I’m moving away from the Bay Area, the only post-college home I’ve known. It’s been five years of good ice cream, bad pizza, adorable friends, and monotonously beautiful weather. I’m already nostalgic for Oakland, even as I’m excited for the British adventures that lie ahead (and overwhelmed by the boxes of books that gaze pleadingly up at me, hoping I’ll relocate them).
And what better outlet for nostalgia then graph jokes?
First, the chilling inner life of the non-nostalgic person:
Second, the tragic paradox of the nostalgic soul:
Third, the pack rat:
Fourth, the Buddhist, free of attachments to worldly things:
And finally, me: some messy combination of the above.
To assess your own pack-rat/Buddhist tendencies, feel free to print this post, stick it in a desk drawer, and see how much you want to throw it out after 1, 6, and 12 months.
Good luck with your move and thanks for the graphs! I really love the dry erase board format. Please don’t ever give it up.
seconded!
Thanks!
Reblogged this on Oblivion – Resurrected.
Take photos of the nostalgic stuff; all of the memories, none of the clutter.
Where in the UK are you moving to?
Birmingham.
And yeah, the photo technique is a good one. As it is, I mostly save papers, not stuff, so my nostalgia doesn’t occupy too much space.
Those are some rather neat graphs. I tend to have a thing where I throw the things I’ve gotten into a pile, which I let ferment, because it makes me really happy to get rid o’ large piles of things. That’s a pretty large part of why I have things, actually.
Things are made to be disposed of, as they say.
That sounds a fair bit like a lie.
Eh, who has a desk drawer with enough space in it to stick something more into it? Pile it on top of the desk with the rest of the stuff!
Who finds something in a desk drawer after only 12 months? Items don’t become nostalgic until they’ve aged at least a decade, and 30 years is more like it.
True. Although for me, there’s a horizon around 36 months where I completely forget what the item is, where it came from, and why I could possibly be nostalgic for it.
GENIUS graphs. I’ve TOTALLY done that re: receipts (so dumb) and calendars/planners (these mostly impersonal pages w/days & numbers occasionally have jewels like, “Dr. appt.”). Thank heaven for Goodwill for taking 99% of my non-garbage.
Aw… I’ll wave goodbye from the Sierra Nevada foothills. Hey, wait, before you leave, have you visited Yosemite? If not, YOU MUST. And that comes from someone who HATES being told what to do & will resist to a ridiculous degree. However, I worked there twice, husb still does, and EVERY time you enter the park you freak out. =) Just sayin’, you’re invited!
Yosemite is great! After 4.5 years of missing the boat, I finally went there this March. It was awesome. Waterfalls everywhere. Must be a great place to work!
And yeah, thrift stores are the true heroes of any move. We had a guy named Joe show up and take away all our old Ikea furniture. I now refer to him as “The Finisher.”
Where and when are you moving? Welcome to the UK when you do. Looking forward to the plural form mathswithbaddrawings.co.uk.
Birmingham! Arriving in early August. Where are you located?
I’ve been meaning to grab mathSwithbaddrawings.com, but I forgot about the co.uk!
Remember that in the UK “Maths” has an S on the end! Good luck!
Note to self: read other comments before commenting…