It’s the 22nd anniversary / birthday of my first paysite’s members-only area opening.
How am I “celebrating”? Just trying to clean up piles and piles of mail, bills, junk, crap. Piled up on our “dining” table. On a chest of drawers. On the floor. All around. Newspapers, junk mail, catalogs, XBiz magazines (still unopened in their blue plastic).
I’m doing all of this today attempting to approach it as a “curiosity adventure”. Tasked with locating our gym contract so my wife can get reimbursed $300. So I told myself I’m not trying to do *everything*, just … I wonder what I will find / if it will appear if I dedicate, let’s see … forty minutes to sorting through “everything”. No wait … not *everything* … just … let’s tackle the stuff on this table.
Forty-five minutes later here I am, close to tears. I didn’t find it, and it feels in some ways like I’ve just made a BIGGER mess. A dozen different piles of bullshit stacked up on the floor on the piano bench on a chair also piled with my wife’s clothes. Uncategorizable shit still on the table. And I can’t just stack it all back up on the table! Actually now that I just wrote that … I *can* do that; it IS still better than it was.
As I felt this overwhelm — of all the stuff just more clearly insurmountable-feeling: unopened mail, unpaid bills … fading receipts I’ve failed to note and log as actual business expenses that now need to be gone through, things we have bought and not actually even used or needed that now just feel like guilty reminders of why I should be ashamed — I felt this strong temptation to think IT MUST BE MY WIFE’S FAULT I CAN’T FIND IT. *SHE* MUST HAVE PUT IT SOMEWHERE AND HID IT AND FORGOT IT, NOT I. Which is 99% very fucking unlikely.
So I am sitting here taking a pause to process these feelings and not try to push through it with storms of angry fearful frustration building behind my brows.
*****
THE REALITY: I only spent forty minutes on clutter that’s been building up for many many months. SEASONS. I cannot expect to solve and master everything I need to do or that these piles represent in less than an hour.
GRATITUDE: I can see things I can let go of, that I feel less attachment to simply because it is so clear there is no enjoyable reason to hang on to them or time to do whatever insane thing I imagine I’m going to do with them. Not true of course of the Bread Zepellin bag from my Once in a Lifetime Trip that I left under the table half-crumpled as a reminder to write about the experience there.
I AM PROUD OF MYSELF for putting a bunch of stuff into recycling, including some catalogs for cruises, fountain pens … a college, even, I could not afford to go to and am too old for. PBS tv broadcasting schedules. It may not be a lot, but it is definitely something.
I AM FURTHER ALONG THAN I FEEL LIKE I AM. I MADE MORE PROGRESS THAN MY FEARS AND OVERWHELM ARE CURRENTLY ABLE TO REGISTER. And it all starts with LETTING GO.
Letting go tof this idea that I’m going to solve it ALL, fix it ALL, get it all perfect in one fell swoop. NO. It is going to take more shuffling, maybe some piles stay stacked up. But now they are a little more sorted AND I HAVE GREATER CLARITY. At first the clarity is really just feeling like THERE IS SO MUCH ***TOOOOOO MUCHHHH**** SHIT HERE!! I CAN’T!!!!.
But the gentle clarity is … I now know that gym contract is not in there. I know there are no emergencies buried under here. I “found” some 1099s so I will have an idea of where they are when I finally do the taxes.
PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION.
And with that, I am going to spend thirty minutes upstairs doing the same kind of thing.
Even though I am so angry (at who?) I’m not doing something special that I *should* be doing for this special fucking May Day happy 22nd birthday dumb ass how many childhoods young adulthoods are you going to go through? Fuck me.
*****
What it boils down to, is the feeling that I HATE MYSELF. I FUCKING HATE MYSELF. I should have built something at this point, but all I have to show for it feels and looks right now like an insane pile of shit that I will never get out from under.
*****
An hour in and after all of this … I don’t feel like I’m doing better. In fact, I’m just crying and feel terrible. I’m trying to keep going and I just feel horrible.
Maybe it started with ruminating on trying to explain to a friend why I haven’t responded to their texts or calls, and just imagining or wanting to say, “I’m sorry. I’m just not doing very well.” And trying to explain in my head the complicated things that are not just that I am doing poorly and suck ass and am a failure at a bunch of things, but also that I don’t always feel terrible, and often feel really good and happy. But that spending time with people or talking to them just sounds like a recipe for terror-feelings, not the good stuff. And I have nothing to offer and am so deeply in debt I just … just better leave me alone.
*****
My eyes are going to just be all burning and dry and terrible. I am trying to remember “don’t believe everything you think” (or feel), reminding myself my morning caffeine has worn off coincidentally at the same time as this meltdown.
I know I should stop and eat, but it makes me so angry the idea of having dusty hands and “not being able to relax” because afterwards I will still “have to” continue this thankless terrible stupid unending chore.
*****
sweeping and weeping unending dust bunnies hairs papers and papers and papers drying me up.
I have nothing to celebrate. Nothing beautiful to show. I am a let-down. A disappointment. A tremendous waste of resources.
Lately I have been realizing it’s probably for the best in some ways that my life is not insured. Because I can see how tempting it would be to solve the problem of myself and finally have something tangible and concrete to give to and benefit my wife.