Sleep on it/creating an exit plan

I went to bed last night at 8:45pm.  That's early.  I looked at the clock and thought about how when I was a teenager, I'd still be getting ready to go out, how this was the beginning of what would be the greatest night of my life--every night.  And now I'm covering my head with a pillow, walking from room to room in our railroad apartment in my mind, thinking about what I am going to do with all this stuff.  How can I escape?  I start in the kitchen on the far end of the apartment.  

The plants.  I can give them away.

The glass jar drawer.  recycle.  

The oven mitts. They aren't mine.

The silverware/knife drawer.  Here I pause.  That's my flatware.  That was the flatware from my mom's house growing up.  I can store those.  Yes.  What about the knives?  Some of them are mine.  I can put them in a stoop sale.  No.  I pack them too.  I already have knives whey do I want to have to buy more knives?  (I think of my grandparents)  You should only have to buy knives once.

The pot and pan drawer.  That's easy.  Yard sale.  But wait, what about those two pots from college?  And the pressure cooker?  What about the salad spinner?  I love that salad spinner!

Then I get pretty upset.  How can you break up with a salad spinner?  

I have one foot here and one foot is already gone as I recall how I'll forget.  I had this journal I kept when I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  I lost it sometime last year.  I was really upset, but then was able to let it go.  Now I think about how it existed but I don't panic at the fact that I can't hold it.  Will I panic over the salad spinner a year from now on a beach in Thailand?  Perhaps a little.  Will I not be able to leave?  No, that's not a problem.  I might procrastinate though.  Will I not be able to give it away.  Maybe.  No.  I have to keep the "goal" in mind.  I shouldn't really store anything.  Why?  What do I really need to save for later?

My eyes dart around the bedroom.  At all the things.  I think about the linen closet and how a tiny fraction of the contents are mine.  I feel like I signed a contract with the stuff.  I feel like I said "thank you, how generous!"  when the things arrived, and now they've buried me alive.

Where is the back door?  How can I just slip out?  I don't want to deal with any of it, I just want to leave.  I look at flights.  Can I afford to leave earlier?  Is that fair?  #$@%!

I've got a light in my chest and belly, anticipation for what's to come and a cold feeling deep in my gut--the feeling of impending doom.  And all this is happening with this other "I" smiling, laughing, compassionate, as it watches "myself" scramble around trying to figure it out.