Stuff

I found myself during the last week slipping into the blahs. Improvements have occurred in all aspects of life and things are good. I have hit my goals. Psychologists talk about goals and the Olympics are a great example. Four years of aiming toward a goal and then the goal is achieved! A case of the blahs can set in. Is that it?

I have skipped into a routine of daily living withe the process of dialysis becoming commonplace. I know what to expect and things are a little boring (something a Gemini doesn't ever want to hear.),

So it is time to clean out areas - the project of picking a drawer or niche where things have been stored so they may be handled later. Well, it is now later and it's time to toss, refile, or wonder why we have something.

Rachel and I are both very judicious in cleaning up. We do not want to leave the planet and have our descendants or siblings have to clean up behind us. So we make many trips to Red Dog Shredding as soon as we have five or six boxes. Thus we stay ahead of the game of moving paper.

George Carlin did a brilliant monologue on "stuff." In essence, everything we do is to take care of our stuff. It's why we buy a house - to have a place for our stuff. What do you think storage units are for? Yep, to keep our extra stuff.

So at some point during our last few years we have moved into a new phase with our stuff.

When we first got married Rachel and I were gathering stuff. It was our nesting period. We joined together and upgraded the speed of our gathering stuff. We were setting up home displays of our stuff. Come visit our house and it is a tale of our stuff gathered on our journey.

But it only took one task of cleaning up after my father passed away to realize we just didn't want to leave that kind of piles of stuff for others to clean up. So we have gone through the transition of nesting and gathering and displaying stuff to "we've got too much stuff" to realize it is time to clean up.

We are going through things now that have not seen the light of day for many years. It's difficult to do this kind of clean-up because it is so easy to get lost. You pick up a set of photos and spend a couple hours remembering Uncle Charlie and the visits to his house. You look at the clock and realize you've lost a half-day in memories.

So I need to finish this blog. Me "in" basket is overflowing and it is time for me to pull everything out and go through things piece by piece. By the time I finish I will have eliminated over half of what was in the box. Suddenly in this arena I will have less stuff. But wait a minute - there are now other areas where there is now more stuff. Rearranging stuff is a good way to fill time. It achieves a purpose and lets your mind think you are accomplishing something. And in the end it looks as if you've done something. Isn't that what production is all about?