I have been cleaning out my closets for the past few days. Every few years I have this overwhelming NEED to simplify my life which means THROWING SHIT AWAY!! It is the best feeling ever!! Just kick it all out...PURGE IT!!! Usually this feeling comes about after watching a marathon of Clean Sweep on TLC...but not this time. My apartment began to feel very heavy and I cant handle the weight anymore. That, and its the pending fear that Ill have to move soon. So I guess I figure Id get a head start by disposing of the CRAPPOLA!!
I have happened upon so many items that are extremely blog worthy...should keep me stacked with ideas for quite some time. I found all of my old journals. The most interesting realization is that I never seem to finish a journal...but do I LOVE to start a new journal!!! And the letters!!! OH dear...I have saved EVERY piece of personal mail I have EVER received!! Those are the pieces of time that I cherish so much...snippets of milestones in my life. And the PICTURES!!! I'm a picture whore...and as a former photographer, I HAVE TONS!!!
A few finds:
- The crazy letters that I shared with a former friend our first summer break from college. We missed each other so much that we wrote each other at least once a day, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day! Keep in mind this was before Internet, Instant Messaging, Email, and Cell phones with free long distance. Everyday I would wait at the mailbox for the next envelope to arrive from Rico Suave, or Baywatch Tower #8, or White-Boy Concierge...we were young and dumb! What can I say? :)
- An Easter Bunny pin and a Santa Clause pin that I used to wear to school when I was in first and second grade...I keep them as a symbol that I too once had "the magic." So when I start to feel overly jaded or cynical, I can remember the sweeter more naive times.
- A treasure trove of teeny bopper magazines...OH the memories!!! Young Johnny Depp...and I'm talking before Jack Sparrow for you kiddies. I'm talking about the Jumpstreet days!!! GOD I LOVED that show!!
- A romance novel that I started to write...because ANYONE can write smut!! Just change the characters names and the setting...you could write smut for years and never go hungry again!!
- A strangers journal that I found in my dorm room a long time ago. It was an amazing find! I have always felt a strange connection with this girl and so I never could bring myself to get rid of the journal. Its such an intimate look into her life, and unlike me, she knew how to keep up with a journal.
- A stuffed Elvis! 'Nough said!
- A grocery list written by my grandmother. This one is hard to explain because there is so much emotion behind it. My grandmother is not well. She is bed-ridden, incoherent at times, senile most days, and blissfully unaware that she is dying. This list is in her handwriting. Its from a time when she WAS the person I'm going to remember. And its in her "speak." The way she always called ground meat "grind meat" is documented on this page which is ripped from one of the many small notebooks that she ALWAYS had within reach. And it also represents shared time together because I took her shopping many, MANY times.
Well I'm almost finished with this cleansing routine...a few more trips to Goodwill and a ton more trips to the dumpster and I'll feel quite refreshed!
14 comments:
An uncomplicated life sounds great. I also save things - I love my old 16 magazines where Cher tells you how to acheive the perfect skin. And the old post cards from vacations my cousins took.. But I think my most prized possession, until I got a note from Anderson Cooper was the autographs & pictures of the Cowsills that I have saved.
Every year I say I want to get back to basics, maybe it's time now in 2007, but I still have to write my feelings about what is going on in St Bernards Parish then I can move on, NOT.
See Uree, it feels good to reminise and purge!! The kinds of things I chose not to toss are very much like the kinds of things you're keeping. Lets name it....
JUNKOROBILLIA. It has been named, it shall be written.
See 'strag'
Now stop cocking around with the computer, and get back to the closet!!
COCKING - writing on your blog instead of doing what you are suppose to be doing.
how about you hit that kitchen of yours instead of one of the cleanest area in ya place lol :P
I hardly ever keep anything. I think the oldest thing i own is a cuddly toy and usually magazines, letter (apart from certain ones over the last couple of years) and everything else i chuck away. I had a journal and i read it one night, i was shocked and embarassed by how i used to think and act so i shredded it up!! lol
Me too Dirty, I've destroyed all my journals. Shame, I guess.
--I found a DELICIOUS anonymous journal, years ago, too. Well, it wasn't really anonymous, "Her name" was in it, but, she's anonymous to me- totally left on accident.
~ a diary, a horrible, painful, and INTIMATE look into an upper middle class (Teenage) girls demise into the world of heroin & other assorted drugs. Not unlike "Go Ask Alice," however, this slippery slope occurred in the mid 80's to early 90's- she wrote sporadically, while, sometimes she was obviously high and would write many times a day, for days in a row- end up in a terrible place, there were other times when the date would skip ahead 7 months-- the time, excused away as `too-dull-diddly & event free to jot.
She'd always describe her surroundings, it was absolutely hypnotic- From the most atrocious,.. vulgar places that I would have probably feared to tread...she got into situations that you could totally relate to, even though they were unbelievable, the way she explained the thought behind the choices, the reactions to situations, you completely can put yourself right there, and it leaves you wondering, (Meaning you yourself) "why` were you so lucky," as all of these things, each and every one, could have so happened to any of us, at any time.
I never read a word of `feel sorry for myself, she was a surviver, after imagining the scenes individually in your head, you sort of file them all at once in a big mental manilla envelope stamped, "Surviver," you totally got it.
-her writing ended in a drug rehab somewhere in Oakland Ca. around 1993.
Even a huge length of time, was covered and she mentioned her age many times, her struggles were merely THAT day. "Before" was mentioned, only in generality, and she never expected anything from tomorrow for that matter, it was never an option. Just today. Never blamed a parent or a guy, It was an overall evolution, and then impasse, but you "got"-- `Hope....
I found this spiral notebook, half laminated & hardly intact, laying on an airport terminal phone-booth in Florida around 1997. I haven't thought about that notebook, in a long- long time.
OH...MY...GAWD!!! I could NEVER destroy a journal no matter how painful it is!!! Myheart bleeds for you journal Liam!!! Dont ever do that again!! Mail it to me instead LOL Im a nosy bitch anyway.
And lil bro, althogh you may have been correct in your mention of the state of my kitchen, i will be kicking your ass when i get home ;)
Shells you should write a whole damn dictionary.
So update...im still cleaning. I can actually SEE the top of my desk...its beautiful. I LOVE this feeling of cleansing...its like giving my apartment a SHOWER!! WOOTS!!
MOI...so you still have it right?? I could not let go of a treasure like that.
and my journal had a name in it too...filled with things as well. cards from delivered flowers, apology notes from boyfriends, ticket stubs, weird unidentifiable adhesive things...i LOVE it!!
ROFLMAOPE
^^^YO NUMB NUTS!!!
Whats the PE in that cyber-geek-speak>>>
P.E? Me neither.
However, I considered, "Peeing, Enthusiastically."
Oh, that was moi....
the PE stands for Pissing Everywhere lolz
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