Almost every December, I purge.

I shred papers. I delete emails. I give away books, sometimes to friends, sometimes to those “Little Library” boxes, looking like bird feeders, that you’ll see along sidewalks in residential neighborhoods.

I’ll throw away items bought after seeing late night TV advertisements. (There have been only a few of these purchases, but I’m always ashamed of the ones I’ve made, blaming the transactions on sleep deprivation).

At these times, I recognize my psyche is filled with the thought that I need to get rid of stuff in order to make room in my life for new things.

What I experienced last week was different. One morning, I looked at my old (and I mean Reagan administration era “old”) GE clock radio.

Its dated and dusty appearance was surpassed as a point of irritation only by its sound quality. The FM radio was awful and the alarm sound, not quite as loud as sirens going off in a London tube station during the Blitz, was even worse.

All of a sudden, I was convinced it was time for it to go.

I tried before, but I could not go through with cutting the cord.  Boyfriends, at different times in my life, bought me new clock radios. I set them up on my nightstand, but I couldn’t use them.

They were complicated. They had functions that I didn’t need and required too high of a learning curve to motivate me to try.

I don’t know why learning new technology is so challenging for me, but it is. I had a friend program my thermostat when I got a new furnace. I don’t know how to program my cell phone for blue tooth.

I figured out how to take taxi cabs in Buenos Aires and how to haggle in a Shanghai market. Using Dog Whisperer-like psychology, there have been times when I’ve even been able to loosen my dog’s stubborn jaw as it clenched something she found on the street but clearly shouldn’t eat.

But It’s been traumatic for me to try to set up a new clock radio.

I had to ask myself why. Is it purely discomfort dealing with something electronic, something where I can’t just use my communications skills to prevail?

Am I afraid of making a mistake? What’s the worst thing that could happen? I over-sleep on yet another day of my pandemic influenced, very unstructured, stay-at-home life?

Or maybe I ‘m afraid my alarm would go off the wrong time, disturbing my upstairs or downstairs neighbors with the mellifluous tones of a WFMT DJ’s description of Stravinsky?

I had to ask myself, “Do I harbor some sort of unacknowledged resentment towards change?” I’m certainly not happy with change where there’s no obvious benefit for me.

Like many people, I suppose, I’m not keen on some aspects of change, but I have embraced change in other ways.

I think what I really have issues with is that my learning style doesn’t seem to be important to anyone except ME. I am capable of learning new things, I just don’t want to be forced to watch a video and assumed that’s all I need.

While some people may rave that anything they want to know is viewable on YouTube,  I need to PERFORM an operation under supervision.  I need to have a guide who can answer questions.

I went to Target and bought a very minimally featured clock radio for only ten bucks. I placed it next to my faux walnut clock radio. I followed instructions and set the time and alarm, and decided I wouldn’t throw out Old Faithful until I saw that everything was working.

I started thinking about who I knew that could teach me how to perform other technical things I’ve convinced myself not to try.

Realizing that the message “time to go,” is about releasing a limiting belief, not about saying good-bye to an object, is no small thing.