As the World Falls Down...

When I was young, I had two best friends. They were not particularly friendly with each other and in fact would often get a little jealous if I was hanging out with one or the other that day. I had both of these friends as my best friends for a couple of years until we moved out of state. At 9 years old, with no such thing as cell phones, we did what so many did then – we lost touch – despite a few valiant efforts to try and write. We eventually did move back to the state, but not back to the same area and I did not see these two again until high school. By then, they had their own crowd they hung out with and we were all merely acquaintances. I remember feeling a little sad even then, because I knew how fond I had been of both of them. I was jealous of all the new memories they made after I left while my family moved around and I had no one with whom I had that kind of history with. I always held onto that fondness and both of them have always had a special place in my heart.

Last week, I found out that one of them passed away. She and I had talked off and on over the years, always saying we would get together, catch up on old times, once schedules allowed. Schedules never allowed. The opportunity was missed. From the limited contact I had with her, I know she loved life. She adored her daughter and her grandson. She lived for moments with them. She was a spectacular friend to those she was close to and really, truly cared about them and thought about them and showed them often. She was my age. It doesn’t seem fair or right and it has caused this heaviness to just weigh on me.

There has been so much loss this year and, I’m afraid, for me it seems that it will continue. This year has broken my heart into a million pieces and just when I think I can start picking them up, one by one, something else causes them to scatter. I have been grasping at straws and moving in a thousand different directions trying to figure out which way I’m supposed to go. I have felt wholly unsatisfied with everything, unsettled, ruffled, uneasy. I have been somewhere in this in-between of wanting to just sleep to wanting to change everything to wanting to embrace the people I love to wanting to throttle people for their poor excuses. Life is fleeting – I know this, now more than ever. I know I need to make the most of my moments – and I am trying. Always trying.

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Declutter the House (and Mind)

Wow - it has been a LONG time since I've posted here. Maybe that's a good thing, ha! I'm posting now because I am setting a challenge for myself. It's the 30 day Minimalism Challenge. If you have never heard of it, the rules are simple. Basically you get rid of stuff every single day for 30 days. The usual rules are 1 thing on the 1st, 2 things on the 2nd, 3 things on the 3rd and so on until you have gotten rid of 465 things. I tried it once before and didn't make it very far, maybe day 5. I found that growing number to be kind of intimidating so I am going to change it up a little bit. I am going to write down numbers 1-30 on pieces of paper and randomly pick one every day. That will be the number of items I get rid of that day. The idea is these items must be OUT of your house by midnight each day. In my case, I'm sure that the husband's car trunk will hold quite a collection for a weekly donation run since I don't have time to make that run d...

The Final Countdown

Well, I did it. I made it through the month of purging. 465 items officially, but since I didn't count most of the stuff I threw away, I would estimate closer to 575-600 things. There are a number of things I have learned in the process. First, I have kept a lot of stupid things. I came across so many items that genuinely baffled me as to why I kept them. They had no use, no sentimental value, no reason at all for keeping them, and yet I did. I would say, even the spaces I went through, I could probably get rid of more, but I am happy with where they are at for now. Once I go through the other spaces in my house, I am sure I will circle back around and get rid of even more. Second, it was much easier getting rid of things than I thought it would be. I have purged items before, but never in such quantities. I attempted this challenge once before but I don't think I even made it through the first week. Excuses and time just got the best of ...

Writing

When I was younger, I always wanted to write. I kept notebooks and notebooks of poetry and I was meticulous about them. If I had to cross out a word or, God-forbid, tear out a page – I had to start over with a whole new notebook. I thought for sure that someday, I would write books. I loved to read them, couldn’t get enough, why couldn’t I write them too? If only it were that easy! I started many fiction stories and often, no later than page 10, I would realize exactly how tedious writing a book is. I just did not have the patience for it. When I read a book, I read quickly. It’s something I have always done, because I am impatient. I want to know the end-game right now. I taught myself to skim (thanks Stephen King for putting SO much detail into a book that I learned this little trick). Don’t get me wrong. I READ everything, but I process it a second later. It’s like driving a car. When you drive, you don’t (or should...

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

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