How I Lost 125 Pounds In A Day

At least that’s what it felt like.
Last week I cleaned out one of my three storage spaces –– the one in Connecticut, near my parent’s home –– containing the most purely archival material.
In fact, I haven’t really thought about what’s in there for 4 and a half years.
Now that I’m moving back to NYC and consolidating everything (which feels slightly overwhelming yet amazing), I traveled there with Belle to see what treasures and trash awaited me.
First, I was pleased at how organized I was.  I am a very good creator of labels.

Second, I was ecstatic that dialing up my editorial ruthlessness, I was able to eliminate over 17 boxes of stuff –– from theater programs (I kept about 4) to drafts of screenplays written over a decade ago to joke birthday cards from people I’ve forgotten.

Of course I immediately felt cleaner and lighter, mostly because I was acknowledging that I wasn’t going to go back to old work, nor did I need to keep dreary diaries from decades ago. I remember the person who wrote those things, but under a polygraph I’d swear he isn’t me (anymore.)
One of the hardest letting go moments, however, was the decision (which I’d made in advance) to trash the 2 original 35 mm prints of my first film.
There’s that voice in the back of one’s head related to film conservation (“The only print of this 1920 masterpiece was found in the back on an attic …”).  But the film has long ago been transferred to DVD (by Warner Brothers no less) and I can’t imagine a scenario where it would ever be projected as celluloid again, much less edited.
FYI, I’m guessing at the weight but the film consists of 5 reels and given that I had 2 prints, from my dim recollection of picking up free weights at the gym, the canisters felt like 40 and 25 pounds so I’m reasonably approximating the total at a solid 125 pounds.
Perhaps fittingly, it’s also roughly the weight of a small person, actually quite similar to the one involved in the film and a tangled break-up afterwards.
Oh the letting go, wheelbarrow of archived memories going straight to the curb … (and actually it does feel rather amazing).