The Great Clean-Out 2012

Phase One: Books

I know – it probably seems counterintuitive to start a clean-out project with the category that you are naturally inclined to hoard but nonetheless it's where I've decided to begin.  I've been feeling a little penned in lately by the amount of STUFF in our house which I have decided is not an altogether random feeling.  Part of it has to do, I know, with the arrival of the latest issue of O Magazine on my Nook (the annual de-clutter issue, naturally).  Another part of it has to do with our current housing debate – to own or to continue renting, to go bigger or smaller… how to redefine our living space for our newly expanded family. 

If you spend a lot of time thinking about what your living space needs to be like, it naturally leads to considerations about the stuff you own – because that's the stuff the space has to accommodate.  And I can't help but look around and think 'what even IS all this junk?!?'

For a pair of natural pack-rats, Colin and I have actually done a really good job in recent years of culling through the junk and giving/throwing away the excess.  At one point last year I was certain the Goodwill folks knew our car before we ever turned in.  But we still have loads more than we need and there are times when it weighs me down – and most often when we're talking minimum square footage of the new digs.

So it seems to me that another massive overhaul is necessary in the crap-we-keep department and I've decided to start with the hardest stuff first – because usually those are the items that you never get to because you burn out on cleaning before you get to them.  For me, as most of you are no doubt aware, this inevitably leaves me standing in front of my book shelves.

I love books.  I love shopping in bookstores and trucking home with arms full of unopened possibilities.  When I first heard that Borders was going out of business I thought, how could that possibly be when they get so much of my paycheck?

Which means, of course, that I have lots of books; admittedly, lots of books I've never read, or will never read again and only a small number of books that fall into the 'lifelong keeper' category.  But I've decided that's what I need to narrow it down to.  I'm going to give myself two categories of keepers – 'haven't read yet, but still want to' and 'favorites – not to be touched under penalty of death.'  The rest will go into a pile to be sold or donated – I haven't determined yet which.

The interesting thing about this is that it affords me an opportunity to dig through the books I own and rediscover them to a certain extent.  I then have to cast a critical eye at them and mentally place them into the appropriate category.  The Rushdie shelf I just skip – all keepers.  Same with the Knapp and the Murakami.  My Nick Hornby books… hmm… split between the two categories of keepers – High Fidelity (favorite), Juliet, Naked (not yet read, but want to), but all of the collections of his old columns… hmmm… I finally decide are keepers (favorites, but part of me feels like I'm pushing the definition a tad). 

But what about Wicked?  Hmm… read it but definitely not a favorite – first addition to the sell/donate box.  Followed quickly by Joy Luck Club (loved it – but not a keeper), then the Proust and several non-fiction books on running, exercising and serial killers.  My tattered version of All the King's Men – definitely a keeper.  The Story of Edgar Sawtelle… ugh… sell/donate… a wonderful story but I never could get past the page near the middle where my heart broke (still so carefully marked by the receipt I was using as a bookmark and never removed).

As I work my way around the room and through the bookshelves, it actually starts to feel pretty good.  I find myself enjoying the process of whittling down to just those books that either still hold my interest (Atwood's The Blind Assassin) or which I know always will (Sontag's The Volcano Lover, my first print edition of The Silence of the Lambs, Stephen King's On Writing).  It's an interesting way to look at myself – how I've evolved based on the purchases I've made over the years and the much smaller subset that I still intend to keep.

And, let's be honest, the other benefit is that all of this cleaning and clearing out makes me feel productive without forcing me to face any of the housing questions that actually prompted it.

Next week – twofold tackle I think.  The guest room closet and… my purse collection… yipes.

Without Regret

This is a common refrain it seems like in our society – people are constantly talking about living 'without regret.'  Like that's a good thing.  Something to strive for.

I think it's impossible.  And really, I think it probably should be.

Let's put it this way – if you get to the end of your life and don't have a single regret – is that a sign that you lived your life absolutely to the fullest, missing nothing and making no mistakes?  No – surely not.  We all have times where we fall short of each of those things even though, ostensibly, they sound like they would be common goals.

So what then does it mean?  Does it perhaps mean that instead you have lived your life in a way that means you questioned nothing, looked back on nothing, and reconsidered nothing?  That is more what it means to me (though, of course, I realize it won't mean that to everyone).  I feel like a life lived without regrets probably just means a life lived with only a modicum of actual self-honesty.

I regret.  Oh boy do I regret.

But not in the way that says 'I wish I could go back and change X, because it would have led me to a different Y' though I realize that of course changing the past could have led to a different today.  It's more that I regret because I now appreciate what those choices meant in the moment when at that point I had no idea. 

For a silly example – I regret my choice of prom date to my junior prom.  Ugh I regret that.  I had three choices actually, two fabulous ones and one that I selected for some reason which I now don't understand (but suspect was based on a completely shallow set of assumptions that ended up being bunk).  And I paid for it too – that was the most boring evening EVER.  So sure I regret but not because in the grand scheme of my life changing that prom date would have changed anything more than the way that one evening turned out.  But I'm fairly certain I would've had a better time.  That would have been nice.  And I'd feel better about it now because the other two choices were, in the end, better people and I let them down because of the way the whole deal unfolded.  And it would be nice not to feel guilty about that anymore.

Part of my feelings about all this has to do with the fact that I am HORRIBLE about self-guilt.  My mom and I were talking about this just this morning – in the context of the fact that motherhood partly equals a lifelong guilt trip.  I torture myself over things and so I can't help but regret because the decisions I made that I wish I could change follow me around with little matching duffels and rolling luggage bags stuffed with guilt, reminding me that my decisions impact others outside myself and sometimes in less-than-stellar ways.

In a way I think that's a good thing – it keeps me honest and thoughtful.  I think about things I did years ago and I wander through the decisions again and consider what it is that makes me cringe even now and what I would choose now to do differently.  And actually more often than not I find that I'm really okay with the choice I made originally, even if it was perhaps a dumb one – but sometimes I realize that I wish I had gone down a different path, for whatever reason, and I regret.

I think maybe what people should say – or at least what I, personally, would rather say – is not that I seek to live a life without regret, but that I seek to live a life such that my regrets are all caused by thoughtless decisions or decisions made without a full understanding in the applicable moment of the whole situation or myself or the other players.  (This in contrast to regrets that spring out of willful, malicious or angry moments in which I make bad decisions because I give over to a side of myself that wants to be unpleasant on purpose.)

Because at least in the way that I, myself, approach my life – I think that a life without regret isn't possible, so it isn't something that I should ever try to strive for.  In a way, I almost want to regret because it means that I understand my life and my screw-ups and I seek to make amends, even if it is just going forward.  So I think I'd rather strive for a life in which my regrets just later make me feel like a goofball or an ass rather than those that might make me feel like a bad person (the difference, for me, being the intent behind the original mistake).

Essentially, I guess, I'd rather be old, looking back on my life and realize that at times I was an idiot but at least I wasn't a jerk.  Or at least not purposefully.

Ha.  Now there's a lofty goal to strive for.  But you know, I like it.  Maybe not as Hallmark-worthy as the more common idea, but these are at least words I think I can live by.

Back to Love

Four months.  That's dismal even by my often low standards of blog update timeliness.  Yeesh.

Suffice it to say that returning to work has proven to be somewhat of a brain-drain which has made writing a bit difficult.  It's not so much the time involved either – it's literally the brain power.  In the afternoon, when Grady naps and I could quite reasonably be expected to post here, I have instead been devouring book after book – resorting to a passive pastime rather than something active like writing. 

I knew I'd get back around in the circle eventually – once I gave myself time to figure out the work thing a little better, to get to where I could sleep a little more at night and to determine where in the world all this change has actually left me.  I'm not quite there yet – but I'm making progress.

While I mulled things over and read books like it was going out of style (which, sadly, it is), there have been several blog posts that have been written, rewritten and scrapped.  In my head.  I have a bad habit of 'writing' my posts mentally while I'm in the shower, or trying to fall back asleep after a bout with Grady at 2am.  Then when I go to actually write them out later they don't sound the same to me and I end up unhappy with the new end product – wishing instead for the one that seemed so well done until it disappeared in the shred bin that is my short term memory. 

One at least of those entries from somewhere in the vicinity of New Years talked all about resolutions.  I love New Years.  I'm a sucker for it every year.  It's like the same rush I used to get every time a new school year started.  The ability to, in some measure, start over.  Revamp, reinvent, refocus.  I loved the start of the school year for just that very purpose (well, that and the excuse to purchase loads of bright, shiny office supplies) and still, even now, I start each New Year with resolutions.

This year is probably the best I have ever done at actually keeping those resolutions.  I have six and of those six, I can honestly say I am currently still at a 100% success rate for two of them – and one of those is a DAILY goal!  (Albeit the oh-so-simple, 'Floss daily.')  Now granted, there is one goal where my progress is slightly-more-than-moderately disappointing and another where I have made no progress at all BUT – I have time.  Right now I'm just choosing to be proud of the success I have had and I take some comfort in the knowledge that at least some of the change I began this year hoping to find has, in fact, manifested itself in my life.

Another one of those entries was going to be a part-rant, part-rave about a long-in-coming realization I had that what someone else might think of me does not have to impact what I think of myself.  Sounds simple I'm sure, but to me it was a huge epiphany. 

It happened like this.  All of a sudden, one day, during a Weight Watchers meeting, I had this crazy thought.  I gave birth.  Sounds like a 'duh!' moment right?  But up until that point, in thinking of Grady's birth all I thought of was how grateful I was that he was safe and healthy, how glad I was that we had such wonderful nurses and doctors to care for us, how lucky we are that our parents could be here, how completely incredible my husband was.  I never once stopped to think 'I did that.'

But that day, as I thought about it, it struck me.  I did that.  Not any of those other people, despite the fact that their assistance was crucial as well as just comforting.  In the end, the actual physical act of bringing my infant son into this world – that was me.  All me.  I made that happen.

And what I then realized was this – I am not a quitter.  I have oftentimes in my life been told that I'm not very good at seeing things through.  That I change my mind, lose interest, move on.  And the sad thing is, what I realize now, that is just a pessimistic view of one of my favorite qualities in myself.

Rather than being a quitter – I would describe myself as curious.  I am endlessly curious.  I want answers to a thousand random questions and I want to dig around in piles of old books seeking the little trivia that will make the pieces of something-that-doesn't-even-really-matter click together.  I love to learn, I love to try things out, I love to stick my hands into just about everything and muddy the water a bit just to watch it churn.

And sure – one of the outcomes of this is that I know just a little bit about a lot of random junk.  I can knit – but not well.  I love to paint, but never mastered it.  I've got a whole collection of cookbooks but would be the first to admit I'd rather order in.  I've worked in a wide variety of industries and settings and in college ended up with almost enough credit hours to have three different minors that had nothing to do with my final degree. 

For years I have used all of that to guilt-trip myself about this difficulty I have with focusing on just one thing and seeing it through.  But in that moment of self-honesty, I saw it all completely differently.  In the hardest moment of my life – at 2am after a whole day without food (and those of you who know me know – I don’t do well without food), tired, in pain, scared and upset – I mustered up everything I had in me and I made something beautiful happen.  I did that.

And what I realize is – I've been doing that for years.  All those times when I dove into something headfirst – that was me, experiencing, learning, loving the moment.  No I never become a master knitter or painter or chef.  But that was never what I WANTED.  I only ever wanted to dip my toes in, learn the basic strokes and let them fill me up and excite me and carry me on to something new.

It's all about perspective and what I know now is that even includes how you look at yourself.  To someone else who might want more than that out of me – I am a quitter.  I'm never going to be master of anything.  But for me, personally, all of those little forays into new things are absolute success stories.  Because a chance to learn, but not to linger, was all I ever wanted for myself.

An interesting lesson to learn as an almost-thirty-year-old woman, that I don’t have to let someone else tell me who or what I am or assign value to my life, such as it is.  A good lesson, albeit a bit late.

So anyway – just a quick synopsis of a couple of the posts that you were denied (spared?) during my absence.  Some of you may be happy to know (others may be disappointed) that I've now added "Blog weekly" to the resolutions list.  Hopefully that'll keep me more accountable to those of you out there who actually care to read what goes here.

And since I know myself well enough to know I work well with bribes, my right to my next learning excursion (rowing lessons at the boathouse downtown) is now tied to my resolution success over the next two months.  So hopefully I can keep it up at least that long!