What else have I been digressing with? On? Well, I had this moment of blinding insight. I realized that I have two main activities that are taking up my energy (besides family stuff and this blog is not about family stuff). One is the ongoing and sometimes futile seeming attempt to get my actual physical stuff under control. The other is journaling.
As a confession, let me just note that it is possible that for several years, I MAY have dealt with stress by accumulating various hobby supplies, and also by NOT getting rid of, well, much. Sometimes things get swept into a box, sealed, set aside and then somehow it is easier to just ignore it.
A little of this is understandable. Regrettable but understandable if you are not by your nature a sweep out every corner kind of person. Which I am not. On a good day.
Some of my time now is spent opening and sorting and donating and discarding and organizing accumulated ... stuff. You name it. There is not a corner or closet or drawer in my house that I haven't emptied, gone through and reorganized. Twice. Thrice. And with each pass, I find more that can be dealt with. That's what I've been doing. But sometimes I hit an impasse. A block. My attention gets diverted (maybe by a travel journal) or my energy is sapped. And when that happens it takes a while to get back into it.
So... and this is where the blinding flash of insight comes in - it occurred to me that I could make a journal marking my progress. Instead of taking time away to have fun journaling (and renew my energy), I could stay focussed by using the journal as a way to explore what I was doing. Sometimes I find scraps, cards, artwork, reports, phone numbers jotted down. You know what I'm talking about (please say you know what I'm talking about). MEMENTOS! Souvenirs. Or at least that's how my brain sees it. When I open a box, a flood of memories pours out. And although I don't like the piles and piles (and piles) of boxes, I sure do like the memories. Too often, I jettison a little and then seal the box again. Which, I know, is why this process is taking so much time.
BUT, by having a place to paste down scraps and store bits and slide in pockets with whatever it is that I feel I need, I know that I am keeping little bits and will be able to trigger those memories and that happy feeling - WITH JUST ONE BOOK! Well, maybe more than one book.
So far, I am using one journal to document the process, and can see how different scraps from different eras can be collected and sorted into their own books. From my teaching years, or our year in New Zealand or my year in Sweden or the kids art work.
Nothing with me is lickity split (too many digressions) but so far so good. I will have more to report on that at a later date, although I will NOT be posting the pages from the clean-up process book. It's just too brutal to see what I need to do and the little baby sets laid bare in the book. Hard enough to do it myself without exposing it to sunlight.
This project, then, is a combination of a goal (cleaning out) and a digression (journaling).
Another new year motto: "Make your pathologies work for you". Or me.
p.s. If you visit this blog and you have a blog and you leave a link in the comments to your blog, I will go visit it because if you like this blog I will probably like your blog but I won't know that unless you leave me a trail to follow. Which I would enjoy. Thank you very much.