How Many Boxes?

Today I was thinking about how many boxes I would need to send all of the books I have accumulated in Wales over the last 3-ish years to Canada.  Guess how many?  I have ascertained (ha! Remember that Kids in the Hall sketch? "I ascertain...", anyways...) that I would need approximately six serious (yes, serious) boxes to transport only my books across the sea.  I have also noted that I pretty much only own books and clothes, though probably more books.  How has this happened?  Books stick to me like lint!  And I can only imagine how many more I will acquire over the next year and, let's face it, my lifetime.  I could build a mausoleum out of books for when I die.  That's a bit morose, but perhaps some would find it poetic.  And yet, even though it sounds like I'm complaining, I actually relish my book-hoarding.  I don't care how many people tell me the "future" (whatever that is) is in e-books.  I love the feel of the paper on my fingertips, the weight in my hands, the somtimes musty smell of the spine and the inscriptions left in used books by lovers and ingrates long ago.  By digitizing our lives, are we losing our history?  I fear this most days, so I am very good about printing out old emails and keeping them like letters, and developing pictures, and being fairly certain that few people read this blog (ha).  The other day someone said to me that "depression lives in the past, while anxiety lives in the future".  I'd say I probably suffer from a good bout of each (cases in point - fearing a move that is a year away, and fearing that the future is ruining the past).  So what does it all mean?  What does anything mean?  If I think about these questions too much, I inevitably feel like I'm losing my mind, so instead I shall turn to the warm comfort of a fictional world - and press on with Far From the Madding Crowd, where things are getting rather sexy, Mr. Hardy - or at least, so I hope.