I've got a new life / you would hardly recognize me

[radiantfracture]

If only I could redirect the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through here.

The Beautiful Shed is in quite a state. In fits and starts (and stops, many stops), a great cleansing has begun.

During Stage One, I emptied out and reorganized the big closet in the back hall. I'd dreamed of being able to put away some extra things; instead, I can now reach the old things more easily.

Anything that needs to be recycled or given away or thrown out on a large scale is piled in the living room. It is like an actual shed in here, a warehouse of Me.

More than ever I wonder about my compulsion to keep boxes and boxes of old journals – 27 years' worth, now. Who are they for? Am I planning to enjoy them in my old age? Am I hoping that my detailed instructions for how to extend an unhappy adolescence ad infinitum will be useful in post-apocalyptic Cascadia? I didn't even get good at it for twenty years or so.

Today provided the courage and the pouring rain for Stage Two: the Corner Cupboard. Now the kitchen looks like the living room.

The idea is that the corner cupboard stops storing objects of the genus "things I might one day make art with if I ever feel driven to sculpt using wiffle balls" and converts to actual art material storage, and I either clear off or relocate the art table, which right now just becomes the generic stack-things table.

I'm rather hoping that friends will have parallel timely desires to divest and we can take a festive trip together to the dump.

Things I've discovered include the following:

In the closet

• Russian nesting doll (keep)


• Horseshoe (divest)


• Going-away card from my old job including this wish: "thanks for that time I forgot my keys and you let me into the back building!" (recycle)


• Teddy bear made by a family friend for my wedding to the ex-co-conspirator (?? Donate? Argh.)


• Giant glass mug shaped like a skull (I think this came from San Francisco – the junk store of my teens, not the tech city of our dreams) (divest)


• Many examples of defunct methods of data storage, including but not limited to videocassette, mini-cassette, audio tape, and zip disk (hoard nostalgically – see journals)

Corner cupboard

• Original dice bag from first D&D days (keep)


• Antique eggbeater (keep?)


• Bag of chestnuts from that time I made everyone conkers for Christmas (scatter)


• Poor storage decisions (redistribute)

Scary basket on top of art shelf

• Elaborate multi-stage hand-made cards with letters written inside, never sent (file)


• Many stamps (adhere)


• Not as many dead spiders as I'd feared (purge from memory)

Some new totes from Canadian Tire complete the illusion of organization.

Oh well. Five more labours (plus the two bonus ones) to go.

{rf}

Comments

[jazzfish]

Congratulations! It sounds like it's coming along nicely.

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! It's sort of at a terrifying point right now, but it will be worth it.

[cmcmck]

I suspect we all have a scary basket on top of a shelf somewhere! :o)

[radiantfracture]

Sometimes I see the spider crawl in and I just pretend it won't be there when I come back.

[danieldwilliam]

I must go through my house and do the same.

I have old university note books. What am I keeping them for?

[radiantfracture]

Oh, yeah. Old essays, because one day they'll definitely be important to someone.

[bibliofile]

I have a hard time letting go of my own work product, sometimes. I spent so much time in that class, taking notes and writing papers. Surely I can refer back to them some time, if need be?

(Note: I have yet to go back and refer to my notes for any class. I am in my mid-fifties. I eventually purged at least the notes from high school.)

[danieldwilliam]

Aye.

The daft thing is that my degree is in law. Most of the notes I made on specific legislation or case law are now twenty years out of date and getting more out of date every day.

The stuff on jurisprudence, moral philosophy and ethics is more timeless but more internalised. It's much more part of who I am.

I think I shall go home and bin a few boxes of old stuff.

[batwrangler]

The landlord would probably object to you putting the necessary holes in the walls. Congrats on your progress thus far!

[radiantfracture]

Hah. He's an inventor -- maybe if we designed the sluice together.

[derien]

You might scan the journals, perhaps? My husband did that for me, but it was in fact only one box full at that point. I used to refer to it as "my box of teenage angst." Yours would be a long project. Still, you might find, as you open them up, that you gain something from looking at them.