My World With Words

How do you get rid of clutter when in that mess are a multitude of possessions you value?

I’m faced with that right now. Moving from a townhome to an apartment and losing a considerable amount of square footage has resulted in a second bedroom chock full of stuff. So much of it is decorative items I truly love but don’t have a place for right now–and realistically, never will again.

I tell myself I need to be ruthless in cleaning out this room, but that’s easier said than done.

As it stands I don’t have a place for some things I definitely want to keep, like the broken-down boxes I used to ship my worldly goods from one home to another. Buying those boxes adds up and I want to keep them for my next move. I plan to store them under the dining room table, but I’ve got full boxes I need to sort through sitting there right now.

Your eyebrows may have raised at the mention of my dining room table and its current home in my spare bedroom. I need to sell it, but that’s impossible at this moment since it’s buried in the debris of my life. I had planned to post a for sale sign on the company bulletin board back when I was scheduled to move, but we were in the throes of uncertainty with the corona virus and that uncertainty included apprehension about job security. Nothing on the bulletin board was selling and besides, truth to tell, I love that table and was reluctant to sell it.

The cats are having a jolly good time in this spare room, with all its hiding places and jumping-off spots. That seems to be the one benefit in all of this.

I tell myself, it’s one box at a time, but that’s getting more and more difficult. Right now I have a couple of boxes of books I want to dig out and donate to the local used book store–they raise money for the library–but those boxes are buried under other boxes with a mix of materials, most of which I can’t decide what to do with.

Eventually, the local Goodwill will benefit. Until then, I sit in this room (the chair is clear) and stare.

Image credit: © Federica Fortunat–stock.adobe.com

Anyone else having trouble with their WordPress account? I can’t “like” any posts (well, once or twice with great persistence I’ve managed to do so on the Reader).

I’m also having a great deal of trouble with this block editor!!!  

This photo is ©Jennifer – stock.adobe.com by the way. I added it when I was trying to add a feature photo. It took me forever to figure out how to do that, and I’m not sure I can do it again.

 

My sister and share little in common, despite being, well, sisters and growing up only a year apart in the same household. That’s almost exactly a year apart, making us both Aquarians. We share little in common but the traits of our Zodiac symbol.

Aquarians are creative, and that is incredibly true of both of us, although our creative abilities are very different. I’m the writer, she’s the artist. I can barely draw a stick figure yet Beth is very talented in that area and always has been. She has an inherent sense of proportion, for example. that I am woefully lacking. Beth is also a better writer than I am artist.

Aquarians are notoriously independent thinkers, which can make us stubborn, to say the least. You can see how this might divide my sister and me, although we rarely argued growing up. The divide came more in the form of isolation–my brother and sister were close and shut me out. That was devastating.

Yet we were also stubbornly loyal to each other. You didn’t criticize one of us to another without incurring some wrath. And if I knew Beth was in pain, I was there for her, although she oftentimes rebuffed my attempts to comfort her. Perhaps I did the same, I don’t know.

Aquarians are idealistic, something that, at least at one point in time, was vitally true of both of us. I’ve grown more cynical as I’ve gotten older, and I don’t know if the same is true of my sister. Because, you see, Beth has separated herself from the family and I haven’t heard from her in nearly twenty years.

That breaks my heart, and I know she has distanced herself because of her own pain. Which brings me to this point: Aquarians are sensitive and tend to internalize their own pain.

How can two women with so much in common have so little to share with each other? I want my sister back, although, after all this time, I don’t know what we’d say. And knowing she doesn’t want to be a part of my life hurts terribly.

Beth, you are loved.

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Image Credit: ©EllerslieArt – stock.adobe.com