I'm preparing to fit what little I have to show for my 41 years of life into a 5' x 10' storage unit in South Jersey. If anyone's ego ever needs to be totally deflated, look at that as the sum of your life. I'm throwing out the first piece of furniture I ever bought, a tall bookcase at Huffman Koos in 2004. IKEA pieces will be dumped as well.

I've held on to my childhood dresser and night table through the years since I've never really had the money or space to buy "adult" versions, so those will be kept in storage. My bed, an etagere I bought at a yard sale in 2004, and some boxes complete the total list. How depressing.

It's all worth maybe a few thousands of dollars, but most of what I want to keep in those boxes are my books. A lot of the ones I have are worn and spines are broken, some pages falling out, but they are the books I grew up with. Some are out of print, all have changed cover art, but I want to reach for the edition I know, the one I can flip to dog-eared favorite sections in a heartbeat. Read about the aspirations, successes, tribulations, and romances that are so far away from my life.

I'm losing my privacy, the relationships I had left, any sense of ownership of my life. Reflecting on the harshness and lack of progress or success I've had. Left behind with so many of my generation and the generations below me, to fight and most often fail against the greed of corporations to rightsize their organizations and dangle shitty benefits and wellness activities as a poor substitute to actual careers, mobility, or adequate reward for the ounces of productivity they have squeezed out of our remaining shells.

Maybe it was inevitable that I would eventually end up here, burnt out, apartment-less and hopeless. I'm resigning myself to wage slave level if I ever do get another job and maybe it's fitting that 50 sq. ft. is the best I can hope for. I don't think I can depend on reality any more, so I'll keep the books that once gave me windows to better worlds, and if I'm lucky someday find somewhere to unpack them again.