1. I have a billion CDs. It comes from my love affair with music, and the fact that I ran a music store for five years before the industry tanked. My attachment to these objects is one that has been unwavering for years. I was slow (compared to most) to move to digital music. Once I did, a few years ago, I painstakingly took months to convert everything I had on disc to digital format for our portable players. We then bought a house not long after, and since we moved in, all those CDs have mostly been in boxes in our laundry room. Rarely have any of them been used since. So finally, I opened up those boxes and called over friends to ransack it all. Take anything and everything. I have a big part of me that was very ready for this. The other part had a hard time giving them up. Although it is hard to part with them (and know that I am not really sentimental about objects, in general), three pretty wonderful things also happened:
A. This brought a lot of joy to my friends. I think they had fun rummaging, remembering lost gems and finding new curiosities since price was not a limiting factor. And I had fun seeing their joy.
B. Watching my friend Rick, with completely fresh ears, take stacks of CDs to try out on our neglected and lonely CD player. No real bias, no preconceived notions, just child-like curiosity. For a "music expert" such as myself, it made me ask myself, "When was the last time you listened to music like that?" With no real knowledge or pre-judgement on what is being heard. It was refreshing to see that his only criteria was listening, and based on whether he liked what he heard determined whether they made it into his keeper pile.
C. Simply rediscovering pieces of my older collection. Remembering why I had some of that stuff in the first place. Since I'm always on the hunt for something new, often I forget to go back to older works, mainly because there's limited time and drivespace. Lately, I've been using my party shuffle function when driving, and this has been fun--to see how things mix, to sometimes be surprised by a forgotten song, and to have some variety. Music is art, and art has a way of speaking to you differently during different times in your life. I kind of need to put the party shuffle on my older collection to see what might speak to me now.
2. Christin's mom is going all-in; she sold her house, is moving to D.C. and getting rid of a ton of stuff that are daily reminders of her childhood and adolescence. The generation before us, I think, generally has a greater attachment and sentimentality towards objects. Their parents might have had it harder, and their grandparents certainly did. People had to get by on what they had. They had to make their own things. They had to work and fight for what they had because there wasn't much to go around. She's tried for years to get us and the rest of her children to take things, but for the most part, we haven't been interested. For her, these things are memories, but to us, it's just stuff. It's been hard for her to understand that, and probably harder to finally let go of a lot of these objects. But she is. She's exhausted this week, but I think she will find it freeing once she's done with the task. And I'm impressed with her ability to jump head first into a new life and let go of the objects of her past despite how hard it's been for her this week.
3. Work is getting to me. We have a huge project going on to move our agency into the digital age, and pretty much from the beginning, it has not gone as we expected it would or think that it should. It is very hard for me to let go of this. It's causing many of us a lot of extra work, we're constantly behind (which makes me feel like I'm failing every day), and we're tired. Normally, when faced with situations like this, I just put my head down and plow through it. But this is a project that involves tons of interdependency. I'm not super great at relying on others to help me. Especially when we feel like we're not really getting the help we are asking for. I haven't been able to find a place for this yet. Usually Christin and I ride this supportive see-saw. One of us will be anxious/angry/frustrated/etc about it, while the other is more collected and unaffected. Then another day, we switch roles. It's exhausting. But I can't help but feel like some aspect of how I'm dealing with this is eluding me. And thus, causing more suffering than there needs to be. I'm aware, and I'm observing myself and searching for triggers, so hopefully I can continue to distance myself from the chaos of it. And. Just. Let. It. Go.
4. Christin and I discussed downsizing some of our expenses, so that we can continue to live comfortably when she begins her internship this fall and goes part-time at work. Two obvious eliminations: U-verse and smart phones. Again, there's a part of me that would feel freed by not having the option of TV and internet on my phone, while another part feels uncomfortable. Besides, it's not like we wouldn't have the internet and still be able to stream Netflix. It's not like I don't have 3 gaming systems in the house (four if you count the PC) if I wanted to play games. And most importantly, it's not like I don't have 100 other things competing for my interest (music, reading, home projects, RPGing, becoming more physically active, etc.).
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