Monday, September 29, 2014

Unattended Piles of Junk

I sit in my tiny, new apartment experiencing a flood of confusing emotions.  Hanging on my walls are the disjointed decorations that I have carried with me year after year, from place to place.  All of the pictures are snapshots that I personally took while visiting exotic locations and doing amazing things, all of which are accompanied by all those silly, little knick-knacks, infused with memories, and together they tell a rich story.  When viewed as a collection they stand as an homage to my past; a past full of promise, full of adventure, and rife with accomplishment.  I sort of fucking hate it all.

I while away the time in my new home trying to figure out the right place to stash all of my stuff.  I have never been a decorator of any worth.  I have never been a nester.  This fact is obvious as I create random piles of junk which are then supplanted by different random piles of junk.  There is a pile of important papers and a pile of miscellaneous papers.  There is a pile of clothes that I wear and a pile or clothes that are just there.  There is also a huge pile of toys from various hobbies which look woefully neglected.  When I create these piles I have a vague idea of what I should do with them but I never get around to doing it. It becomes obvious that I don't believe there is a perfect place for any of this stuff and, in fact, I don't care where this shit goes.  The pictures on my walls are a testament to a life lived outside.  They stare down at me like the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, critical of what I'm doing.  I cower below their glare, feeling trapped.  If I could crawl under my piles of junk and hide right now I would.

Deep inside I sort of feel like all of that unattended garbage.  It's all crap from the past that has little relevance or bearing on my present.  It's stuff I don't want to be bothered with.  As much as I want to embrace the meaning it all once had, I simply can't.  Recently I had surgery to fix a problem that was supposed to improve my "quality of life."  The doctor was very convincing when telling me it would benefit me and, even though the wait leading up to it had been rough, I still believed in a promising future following the procedure, one full of adventure and success as was my past experience.  Unfortunately, the attempt failed.  As I sit here under the close examination of my own personal Dr Eckleberg, sitting in my junk, I don't believe in those promises any more.  Now looming over me is the question of how I will rectify who I once was and who I thought I could still be with who I am now.  This junk needs to find a place.