Clearing clutter

the plan at my house is to go to the flea market at the fairgrounds on the 23rd and see a bunch of stuff.  my house and garage are complete disaster areas and i have uncovered stuff i haven't seen in years, as has steve.  it's time to clear out stuff we dont' need and meld our combined stuff.  i have moved 5 times in the past 7 years and i eliminate all kinds of stuff each time i move so i'm naive enough to have thought i wouldn't have alot to go through.  silly me.  however, it is most therapeutic and i would whole heartedly suggest to anyone, especially anyone who at a critical part of their life and are, or need to, begin a new direction.  it allows to you reconnect with old stuff, decide what you need to keep and what you are able to give away.  the senior center in paradise has made, i'm sure, a tidy amount of money from my donations.  one of the things i had to do was open a crate that contains the belonging of my step daughter, janel.  i haven't seen or heard from her in years,which breaks my heart, but i know she avoids me because she is making bad decisions in her life and she doesn't want me to think badly of her.  she is making bad decisions in her life still at nearly 30 but i would never think badly of her.  i am, however, most sad that she had chosen this path for her life.  i opened the crate, looked at what was in it, and couldn't make any decisions about the contents.  it wasn't my stuff.  i closed the crate and it's on a shelf in the garage waiting for her.  but i did find some things i thought were long lost and made me feel warm, fuzzy and a little weepy.  my rooms are a mess from all the boxes of stuff that need to stored in the house and the garage is an open space,with new shelving going in, that is waiting to collect new stuff we think we need to keep.  it makes me feel like steve and i are a family.  i've never felt that way before.