I thought our story was epic

I do it for you, Jane

Posted by Cory , Wednesday, August 25, 2010 8:52 AM

I'm under no illusion that I'm not an enormous pack-rat; it's been my reality for as long as I can remember. Throwing things away kills me. As I've been packing up the apartment in preparation for moving in with Amazon and, ultimately, my relocation to PDX, I've been forcing myself to really examine the crap that has wound up shoved into every nook and cranny of my life and deciding if it's really vital to the salvation of my soul to keep it, and I've found that, for the most part, it's not been as difficult as I anticipated. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and thus more mature (ha!), or maybe I just want to get it all in boxes and not have to stress about it anymore. Whatever.

But what do I do with my CD collection? Now, prior to last summer when, in a fit of nostalgia, I bought an old Jimmy Eat World album at Hastings, I can't remember the last time I physically bought and actual CD. Approximately 97% of my music is already stored on my computer. I have a sweet FM transmitter built into my sweet Bluetooth device so I can listen to whatever I might be in the mood for with a few taps of my finger. I got rid of any CD players that I had long, long ago. So why do I continue to hold onto my collection of albums?

As near as I can figure, to get rid of my album collection would be acknowledging the end of an era (so to speak). The advent of iTunes has coincided with my coming-of-age in such a way that I sometimes find myself becoming wistful about the days when I just had to stop in at Sam Goody whenever we made the trip to the mall. When I made up my Christmas list, it was always consisted of a couple of different CDs, and I always had to make a note for my mom as to what section of the music store she'd be able to find them, since I've never been one to commit to a genre. Now, iTunes gift cards are pretty much par for the course for any gift-giving occasion and Mom no longer has to stress about trying to find an album by an obscure band for my stocking.

I've gotten rid of old CDs before, of course, when I've outgrown or gotten bored with them (much to my chagrin, now, because I would love to have that Foo Fighters album back), but I'm not sure if I can clean house of the entire collection. I just don't know if I'm ready to close that chapter.

Posted in nonsense, portland, wasting time