What’s this? What’s this?

As I work to clean up the clutter of over 30 years of married, family life, I find that it’s funny how the human mind works sometimes. This is “stuff.” Inanimate things. But it is sometimes VERY difficult to put those things in a bag for either the garbage or the donation center (my favorite is the Purple Heart). Why is that? Why, when I hold something in my hand, am I magically transported back in time to a period in my life when Kim was alive and vital? Sometimes, it isn’t even the timeframe in which the thing was acquired that I’m transported to. And, oftentimes, it is simply the remembrance of how Kim liked the sort of thing I’m holding in my hand that triggers it. This reaction comes especially with things she made.

I know I’m not abnormal – we humans assign emotions to all kinds of things. I’m just both fascinated and horrified by how the mind behaves around such things. I think there would be no such thing as a hoarder if we didn’t attach emotion to things.

As I once told my sister in a similar discussion decades ago: this “clutter” constitutes the collection of souvenirs from the various stops along the journey we’ve been on. We gather things to remind of us the events of our lives; of the emotions – happiness, excitement, sadness, and melancholy – the gamut of our emotional states along life’s path. Some of us collect all kinds of little things, and have difficulty surrendering them, leading to “clutter.” Some are more selective and need and have less laying about to remind them of where they’ve been.

I’m trying to become more like the latter group. So many things. So many of these collected things are relatively useless to me both today as well as with my plans going forward – but this realization makes it no less difficult to relinquish them.

So much work to do. I want to get the house into a saleable condition. It’s much too large for me now. Frankly, it has been too large for Kim and me for several years now, but we made use of the extra space for our pursuits, making it less “obvious” that it was time to think about downsizing. I think I’d like to find a place with all the space I need on one floor – somewhere that I know will suit me for many years to come.

I’d best get back to work…

Some days you feel like a…

Yesterday was an emotionally terrible day. I felt like a hollow man. Nothing seemed to have any value or meaning to me. Many things conspired against my mood, making it seem to me as if any elevated mood I had up to then must have been just a masterful façade. Just felt empty.

The first day after the end of a pleasant vacation with Sheila, my girlfriend. First day back to work. Counseling and consoling some around me. But I think it was that I had none of the close companionship I had enjoyed on our trip since last Wednesday. None of the feeling of “normalcy” that came with it.

But today, I have a fresh perspective. I’ve clawed my way most of the way up from that pit, and have been able to label those things that caused that (thankfully) brief slide into deep depression.

I have most of my clocks set to display time in 24 hour format. This is a reminder to me that each new day is also a new beginning; a new opportunity to live. Each day as the clock moves from 2359 to 0000, I try to push all that I’ve gathered from the prior day out and start anew. Successful all the time? Absolutely not – but it gives me perspective. And it is that perspective that lets me heal myself from such dark, troubling days.

Sorry if yesterday’s post scared anyone.

Now appearing, the amazing mister…

I am frequently amazed at my capacity for looking “normal” – happy, engaged, interested – when, frankly: I no longer am. Not in the least. Nothing holds my interest anymore. Not my family, not my friends not my job, not my myriad hobbies or former interests. I’m a hollow vessel, casting about for things to fill the void, but nothing and no one does.

How do I really feel? Everything is tedium.

You win, whoever you are. Please take your prize.