Not Buying Stuff

So I’ve made plans to move to Indonesia and get a job teaching English some time in 2013.  This has changed my perspective on so much here in the last month since I’ve made these plans.  I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff.  Sold a few things and only acquired stuff that I’ll be able to use overseas.

What’s really most interesting as I move forward in this plan is how it effects my immediate acquisitive nature. I work in retail. I see stuff. I think I’d like to buy this stuff.  It’s kind of weird when my natural American instinct to buy stuff is stifled by this upcoming deadline to reduce my personal belongings to two suitcases worth of stuff.

As I wrote about in THIRST, I bought some poinsettias which I expect to live behind my new laptop (my desktop died 3 weeks ago which is why I haven’t posted on this blog) for a couple weeks, and then they will die.  It’s a good metaphor for my life right now; I’ve got the short-timer  attitude in everything in how I approach what I do, what I buy and how I live.

Attention friends and family who are thinking about Christmas gifts: I can’t take it with me.

Per Murphy’s Law, I expect I’ll find girlfriend sometime in the next few months who I’ll have to feel bad about leaving when I go.