Last week I was sorting again… seems like I am always sorting out something. Paring down, thinning out… does one’s life really need to be so organized? I suppose it does when you travel light. This should really be the last of it (says my left brain) oh no it’s not (says my right brain). Sorting is a lifelong process...
The storage box was in the yard when we arrived last night. In the dark the 6 by 10 box loomed large… burdeness… foreshadowing the emotional choices yet to be made. There is no putting it off. Both finances and schedule required me to address… “the procrastination pod.”
We save/store for many reasons. In the procrastination pod goes our unwillingness to decide, our refusal to accept, our unrequited amour for the inanimate objects representing animated moments. I will need this… later. I need to keep this. I’ll fit into that after… I can’t let go of… blah, blah, blah, and we stuff it all in the pod postponing the decision for another day.
The Procrastination Pod” for some is arduous. Some people meticulously sort and select items to for retention while for others, no sorting is required… if it fits - it stores. Regardless of your personal process, in the end, the door swings closed, the lock clicks, and the precious along with the not so precious cargo is driven off to an undisclosed local. In my imagination it is delivered to a happy little subdivision with many other pods that all look the same. Somewhere just past Timbuktu and around the corner the Isle of Misfits. I could go on and on but that’s another blog entirely...
Anyway…
Somewhere down the road another day arrives bringing the procrastination pod with it. The prodigal pod has been returned. My initial reaction upon seeing it was anxious excitement for all the good stuff I must have kept... followed by, emotional in trepidation, a little resignation for the task at hand, and finally excitement again.
It took me the entire next day to go through, sort, divide, and conquer. Time eases many things, including decisions. I kinda felt like I was in a reality show. Somewhere between “Clean House”, “Cash in the Attic”, and “This is Your Life”…my own personal Twilight Zone.
Due to previously commitments for Ruth, my task was a solitary one. I really didn’t mind other than it meant revisiting some boxes that were not mine to sort. I shed a few tears over a few photographs of people I miss… living and passed. Prompting me to make phone calls to those I could. Just chatting with some and actually making plans with others. Was it yet another delay tactic? It is hard to tell.
I also found myself laughing. Really laughing… Picture it: I was sitting on the front porch floor with a corrugated landscape of cardboard in all directions. I was reading greeting cards that we had sent to each other (almost weekly back then) when our hearts overflowed with the mere site of each other. One tickled me, I threw my head back in laughter and hit my head on a box top mountain. I was jolted back to the present. I quickly surveyed the land beyond my nook to insure I was still alone. “Was I talking to myself? Was I talking out loud? The coast was clear. Feeling secure in the knowledge that I was still alone I recovered my self-abandon and delved back to my nostalgic reality show. I continued through the day without too many commercial breaks/message from my sponsors.
Eventually, my “Procrastination Pod” show had to come to an end; door shut for the last time, empty, hollow, and ready to be returned to once it came. I envision it on stand-by waiting to be delivered to someone else. Ready to be neatly stacked with crates of someone else’s deferred decisions… Piled with someone else’s reality show in the making. Opening date: tba,
Peace, Luv, and Sorting,
barbie
