Reincarnation

Today, as I waited for Suz's Dad to come pick up the turtle (no that's not code for anything- I was just turtle-sitting)  I started in again on that black hole that is our upstairs room. It's a general catch-all and is mostly used just to house a humongous weight set, because in earthquake country the best place to put a load of free weights is in a top floor room directly above a bunch of A/V equipment. Ahem. Anyway, I started cleaning it out again. Each time, I manage to whittle the chaos down a little more. But it's hard. We're not only pack rats but sentimental pack-rats. The worst combination in the battle against clutter. Besides, Tony and I have been so many different people over the years that sometimes the stashed tidbits are all we have left of those lives. There are some school notes between Lila and I back when we were little grade school revolutionaries, Tony's prom pictures where he's quite dapper and straight-laced, sorority formal pictures where I'm just as painted and shellacked as every other co-ed, left over art cards from the stack we sent out announcing our wedding, about sixty pounds of my old coast guard axillary paperwork, Tony's high school diploma, a gaming dice bag, a painted BDU jacket with the arms torn off, a couple of Ren Faire costumes, Tony's racing car mags, my investment books, tons of comic art in various forms and hockey, hockey, hockey paraphernalia everywhere I looked. When we were really into hockey, we obviously had too much disposable income because the stuff is everywhere.
But that gave way just like everything else, and the marker for its passing was a bright yellow MSF handbook neatly tucked on top of a stack of Beckett Hockey magazines. The magazine boxes were very interesting because they reminded me of geology and relative dating. The motorcycle mags went down to a certain strata below which cars and hockey populated. When I dug down far enough, the sailing magazines started filtering into the mix. I've got about three full magazine boxes that are going into the recycling just from what I did today. That's probably six to eight paper bags worth. Yeesh!
I have no excuse for why we hold onto some of that stuff- and yet, I know I haven't culled a tenth of what I need to in there. But it's hard. I may not be any of the people that bought or made those items, but I always get the idea in the back of my brain that someday maybe I'll become them again. It's like wanting to return to almost every place I've traveled. Maybe that's why I leave some items, to make a trail of breadcrumbs just in case. I know I'll never again be sixteen and working to subvert the system, or eighteen and working the system to  my social benefit. But for a few seconds when I read a letter or a piece of writing or hold a photograph I feel like I am. I guess it's worth having these untidy spaces in my life to be able to keep the memorabilia around. Maybe all the untidy spaces in life are nothing more than the price of living different lives in the span of one. If that's the case then, I'll happily keep our bulging closets in order to see who we get to become next.

Comments

[carolyn]

>Maybe all the untidy spaces in life are nothing more than the price
> of living different lives in the span of one.

Holy cow, do I have multiple personality disorder, then, too. *laughs* I sure hope we're all friendly, at least.

[wen]

Great post. Reminds me of some of the stuff I've gone through (am going through). I'm going to link this over at my other blog, www.declutterbug.blogspot.com :)