You're not the only one

with mixed emotions.

The goodbyes have begun, over reasonably spaced delicious meals that no one will let me pay for.

The desk is almost packed - and this time I went through everything, as my exhausted shredder can attest. No longer am I moving birthday cards from the mid 1990's from domicile a to b. Nor cute little thank you notes, photos of people I cannot remember, anything that evokes a what-once-was or a might-have-been.

So what makes the grade?

Years of letters from one, on yellow lined sheets and family company stationary. Sketches from another, sent across the Pacific and to summer camp. More recently acquired cards and just because notes from special someones, regardless of whether or not I can read the handwriting. Business cards for New York shops and restaurants, from Carmine's, my inaugural NY dining experience (a colleague from San Diego ordered an appletini and the bartender didn't know what she was talking about), to the one in Chelsea, owned by a friend's sister-in-law, that I just have to go to. Bills from the last year only. And anything that makes me laugh out loud.

Lets grab the world
By the scruff of the neck
And drink it down deeply
Lets love it to death ...