Stuff piling up in the rear view mirror

I'm listening to some old Pablo Cruise on YouTube while I undertake another round of Swedish death cleaning. Today I packed up my collection of academic books into one small but heavy cardboard box. The music is making me sad. I'm remembering the 1970s. Love will find a way. Ha. Overly optimistic sentiment. I'm sad because in the 70s, I didn't know what I was capable of, good and bad. My brain was still forming. Now I look at these books on factor analysis and structural equation modeling and marvel that my brain was once capable of comprehending their content. I peaked in 2013. It's been a messy downhill slide ever since.

Lately I seem to dip in and out of jettison mode. Today this is what is on my mind. I had planned to write about my exciting adventure preparing for and undergoing an endoscopy and a colonoscopy (I got the twofer deal), but I'm over it. That is so last week. I can't find the energy to even think about it. Even though few things are funnier than having a camera rammed up one's butt, suffice it to say, I have nothing new to offer. Most of you have probably already had to suffer the indignity one or more times. All I can say is, thank God for my friend S and praise the Lord and pass the Propofol. Lying there trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, with a plastic gizmo holding my mouth open and my privates flapping in the wind, I was never so glad to exit stage right in all my life.  

So that's done. No polyps, no cancer, I got the ten year warranty, so this entire surreal experience is fast receding in the rear view mirror. I've already forgotten the week of starvation and the night spent scrolling through Instagram while parked on the toilet. It's all a hazy blur best left on the side of the road. 

Now that I'm eating food again, I have the luxury of resuming my anxiety about my heart. It keeps thumping and bumping along, but with the exception of the first few days of monitoring (during which I was starving), I actually feel pretty good. I don't have a lot of energy (iron anemia) but now that the colonoscopy is done, I can start taking the iron supplement. I hope that restores my superpowers. I am looking forward to channeling my inner Popeye. 

I'm chagrined that I still have so much to jettison. I dragged along pieces of my former lives with me when I moved to Tucson in 2021. My academic books. My art supplies. My sewing machine. Who do I think I am? A person who still knows how to do statistics? I think my editing days are over. My brain cells and my patience seems to have run out at the same time. It's time to say goodbye to the books (so much money spent on those books, argh). I will donate them to the library foundation. They were happy to receive my DVDs and music CDs. I fear their eyes will roll back in their heads when they see these obscure academic titles but who cares. With my donation, I amputate, exorcise, erase, I don't know what word to use, I release that part of me that is atrophied and useless. 

Same with the art supplies. I dismembered the three framed acrylic paintings I brought with me into their separate elements. The canvas will go out with tomorrow's trash, to start a new life in the landfill. The frames and the stretcher bars will find a home with some as-yet-to-be-discovered Freecycler, who will also be thrilled to receive an almost full pad of vintage newsprint, two (expensive) birch drawing boards, a dozen large tubes of (still good) acrylic paint, and fifty-plus artists brushes in all sizes and conditions. All the stuff I dragged with me from Portland, thinking I can't claim to be an artist without a box of art supplies. Ha. I still draw. I drew a picture today. There you see it, hot off the whatever you call lined paper in a composition notebook. I was sitting in a Zoom meeting, drawing while listening, channeling my inner curmudgeon, as is my wont.

My sewing machine will be the last to go. It's such a practical tool, unlike statistics books and art supplies. I might keep it for a while longer, at least until I decide to hit the road. Even then, I might pack it on the roof of my car, in one of those roof boxes. I might want to make car seats and curtains, who knows. With Popeyes on them. 

It's hard to let go of some of these things, not because they are intrinsically valuable but because of the parts of me they represented. I don't have those parts anymore. It's likely the statistician in me is gone for good. The artist in me has morphed into a writer-slash-illustrator or cartoonist, caricaturist? I don't know what to call myself. I'm still an artist. I'm just not a painter anymore. I had a gulp when I saw my easel go away, but ripping up my old paintings was surprisingly easy. I have photos.

So the question is, who am I now? I'm still figuring that out. My brain and body have changed. I'm no longer capable of doing some things. Maybe I can't do math anymore, or find the right words to describe what I am feeling. Maybe my writing is mundane and silly. Maybe my drawings are trivial and idiosyncratic. Maybe I only have the energy to putter slowly on a bike around the trailer park. It's okay. I can still make myself laugh with my stories. The jokes are for me. As long as I find joy in the creative process, I will keep creating. When it stops being fun, I will go do something else.

What did I just say? No recollection

 

In the past two days, two people have asked me if I'm really a chronic malcontent. I've been complaining in this space since, what, 2010? Maybe this whole blog thing I do isn't clear to anyone but me. You will interpret things I write in your own special way. Probably the most practical lesson I have learned in my years of working a program has been that what others think of me is none of my concern. 

In the past, stating something like that has gotten me into hot water with my family. I can't say I care much. I'm distracted by things other than my blog and its readers. On Monday, in broad daylight, a young white man walked past my window carrying a long gun as if he was looking for someone and meant to use it. Ten minutes later, five police officers showed up with weapons drawn. On Wednesday night around midnight, someone pounded hard on my door. I peeked through the blinds and saw a young white man (not the guy with the gun) standing outside my door as if he expected me to open it for him. Maybe he was looking for the person who lives in the other same-number apartment in the other section of the complex. I didn't open my door to find out. 

I'm hunkered in my burrow, figuratively speaking, wondering how long before I give up trying to fend off reality. Maybe I'm chronically malcontented, maybe I'm just situationally malcontented. Maybe when that stupid ship I have always believed was offshore finally flounders in tie up at my dock, I can heave a sigh of relief and relax. Meanwhile, I soldier on, taking care of bithneth. 

Yesterday my friend E witnessed my signature on my healthcare powers of attorney. My sister now has the authority to pull the plug. I need to mail copies to the State of Arizona and drop off copies to my doctor's office. Next on my list is to fill out the POLST form (printed on orange paper, don't forget) and then write my will. The fun never stops. 

Last night I went through my closet yet again and pulled out some jackets I brought with me, thinking, who knows, COVID might end someday and I might need to look business-presentable. Now both things are unlikely, and I am no longer planning for a future in which it matters how I look. I'm letting go, not hanging on. It's past time to relinquish the past. Into the thrift store donation box the jackets went. I'm trying not to think about the long spaces of time that open up before me when I am less obsessed about my possessions. 

My next task last night was to go through a box of my old writings. I should have done this before I moved. I dug into some dogeared folders and found essays from early college days, as well as some lined notebooks of handwritten stories half-started, never finished. I used my old printer to scan the few things I thought worthy of keeping and jammed the moldering paper in a sack for recycling. 

Some of the handwritten stuff was hard to read. The ink was faded, the handwriting was illegible, and the ideas were trite, melodramatic, and self-conscious (unlike this blog). I had forgotten how much angst I used to have. All my characters were morose and self-righteous, all the scenarios were tense and predictable. If you think I'm a bitter writer now, you should have seen some of the stuff I tore up into pieces last night. Compared to that writer, the malcontent you meet here in this blog is Little Mary Sunshine. 

It serves no purpose except self-centered self-flagellation to retain that part of my past, even in stories. Self-flagellation is so 1980s. Stick a fork in me. Even these documents I've scanned will be lost in the cloud once I'm gone, as links to shared folders fade in memory and email addresses gather dust. Nobody cares. And I no longer care. I'm paring down, letting go, simplifying in preparation for the next adventure. Bottom line, like all humans, I will shuffle off this mortal coil empty-handed. All this stuff I thought was so essential to my wellbeing has become a concrete block around my neck. I feel a great sense of relief to lighten my load. Seven months left on my lease, then I'm off to the unknown. If I don't get shot by a stray bullet while eating my eggs and veggies.