I had originally started out thinking that I was going to write a “Farewell to the house” post about how awesome it was to live there and all the good times I had, but then something happened. I started helping Jesse, Charlie, and Bobby move stuff out of the house and clean up and at first I was reminiscent about all the things that were just being thrown away. Thinking, we collected this stuff for a reason, isn’t somebody going to enjoy it. But then wave after wave of crap kept pouring out of the house. It really wears you down, they literally threw away a ton of stuff. couches, beds, tables, chairs, tvs, monitors, computers… it was all just too much. February 28th 2009 marked the end of an era.

That era was my extended adolescence. For real this time!

The rest of the guys are finally moving out of the house in Vienna. It’s like a going out of business sale, everything must go. All the stuff that I left behind there thinking someone would use  is out the door. You know all that stuff that you thought would look great around the bar in the basement? It’s old and dusty now and nobody wants it. You remember the bar in the basement? It’s old and nobody wants it. You remember the basement? It’s dirty and nobody wants to live there.  I don’t remember why we were keeping Brian’s mom’s microwave in the basement, but now you realize it’s so old that it has a dial for a timer and remember a dent in the top where people used to climb over it to get up onto his bed in the dorm room freshman year. Which… dear lord… was 2000.

What is it with my urge to remember everything that happens to me. Is it that I think my best times are behind me? I don’t! Maybe I just think that nobody else will remember these things. Nobody else will know that those plastic coconut cups in the basement came from the my engagement party.  Those 10.000 beer caps that you were saving for some un-named project… it’s not going to happen. Do you know why on Cribs you don’t see a wall plastered with cardboard 6 pack boxes, because it smells like mildew and the tape pulls the paint off the wall. But where does this stuff go when the era ends? Who gets the beer pong table? Who gets the bar, the bar!… man! Well, the answer for most of this stuff, is to the trash or for a small percentage Freecycle and Unique Thrift Store.  Conveniently where I will go in 10 years to buy it back when I’m in my midlife crisis.

There were a lot of good times the 4 years at the apartment in Fairfax and the 3 and a half years in the house Vienna. But it’s time to move on. We’re all moving on, in with our respective girlfriends. In my case it’s time to purge some of the crap in my life, so this era comes to an end at an opportune time.