Confessions of a Book Dragon

As we've been packing up our rental to move to the new house we are buying (yeehaw!), I've been forced to go through many of my possessions and decide which ones go in the Stuff I Must Continue to Hoard box, and the Stuff I've Hoarded Long Enough and Gotta Get Rid of Before I get Attached to It Again box. I've done pretty well, other than the boxes of trinkets and notebooks that I found in a closet that were never unpacked or used since the last time we moved. It would make sense to get rid of these, but what if there is something inside that's important? What if I wrote something genius on the corner of one of those pages?!
I'll just keep them and go through them when we unpack in the new house, I reasoned. 
So I taped the boxes up to stack in the keep corner without looking through them, laughing at the hilarity of me ever unpacking them. Ever. My grandkids can unpack them after I'm dead.

Anyways...when I got to my book shelf and book piles, my inner dragon emerged and I couldn't get rid of ANYTHING. As I sat in the middle of the books scattered around me, I felt the need to lay across them and possess them eternally, and kill any hobbits who tried to steal them from my lair!
How dare anyone expect me to part with a children's book series that I will never read again and didn't even like that much.

How could I ever get rid of the book that gave me nightmares for a week and I couldn't touch while I read because it was too scary?! And who would have the AUDACITY to suggest I get rid of my 6 inch thick "Complete Works of Shakespeare" that I carried everywhere freshman year but never opened because it was easier to read internet versions?!
After sitting in distress in my book piles for a while, I finally filled one of my 10 billion cloth tote bags that I will keep forever with those chosen for sacrifice.
Then I set the bag by the recliner for a week because I kept having second thoughts. What if some day in the next 10 years I get a hankering to read that terrifying, life destroying novel again? 

This beast was hard to part with.
I opened it approximately 2 times ever.

After I stubbed my toe on the bag of books a few times, I reasoned that it was time. So I lugged the bag to the car, and drove to the library for donation. I literally thought about turning around several times along the way, because what if they think I'm weird based on the books that I once read? What if they don't respect the books?! 
But I didn't turn around, because a library is the best home my books could ever find, and the sun had set on my relationship with these beautiful rectangles of words.

The library was grateful for the books that my dragon hands forked over, and my cold dragon heart warmed a little for that.

You'll be missed, little bookies, I whispered as I looked back towards the entrance to the library. Then I launched into the sky, my scaly belly reflecting the sun as I extended my giant wings and flew in a dramatic loop fit for a movie.

Then I remembered that I drove to the library and begrudgingly stuffed my butt into the car to drive home on I-5. I still had to pack the kitchen, and who knows how long sorting that endless pit will take.