Wednesday, September 23, 2009

My Life in Plastic

There is no security in my life right now. I am without a permanent address; without a job. This is an intolerable situation for a control freak like me, and so....I control what little I have control over. My entire life is organized into baggies. Big baggies, medium size baggies and tiny baggies. A baggy for every little item I own. I have an underwear baggy, a sock baggy, a makeup baggy, an electronic-gear baggy....well, you get the idea. I wonder, as I zip the Calcium back into the vitamin baggy, what on earth people did before the baggy invention?? How did people organize themselves, for god sake! How did recently-separated, need-to-take-charge-women, cope, when the chips were down?

I am grateful, very grateful. Baggies are my silver lining, my saving grace.

We all need someplace to put our crap. I may not have a home, but my life, what remains of it, is securely ensconced in plastic....and that affords me a smidgeon of organizational security.

I'll take what I can get.

6 comments:

  1. you have to leave him completely before you can move on - that can be a most painful extraction, as you are now learning. It shall get better, and sooner than you can imagine at this moment.

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  2. Charli,

    please remember those are just things. the most important part of your life is how you take care of you, mentally, emotionally, physically, during this trying time.

    and remember one of my favorite quotes from Emily Dickinson: "There is nothing which cannot be cured by a hot bath and a good book."

    love and hugs, and chocolate,
    cutesypah

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  3. My move has taken much longer than I ever anticipated. But it gave me time to organize my life, into boxes and yes into baggies. My divorce is six years out now, and I am still unraveling our connection. This is one of the final steps and I am drained. All I can do is keep stepping forward. That is the key, despite the chaos, stay on your feet, remember what you value, what you want and keep going in that direction. CD

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  4. Many times I promised myself I would trim the sails and not have so many useless things in my life-I would become a minimalist. Too many books, trinkets from places been, souvenirs from sights seen. I reasoned that one day I might put most of my things in a garage sale and keep what is most important to me-my individuality, memories, and the eternal spark to look forward that is the flame of my life.
    Then one day it actually happened while I was out of town visiting a family member. A Dear John letter telling me not to bother returning. My departure had been my matrimonial tour de force brilliantly conceived and delivered with the expertise of a battlefield tactician.
    I was devastated.
    So many times I swore I would end it. When it happened, I was not prepared for the depth of the final cut.
    So there I was a pilgrim in an unholy land, divested of everything I had seen as my comforts.
    I have gone back-to visit. Never stayed more than a few hours. I do not miss the baubles that once hung around my neck like a hangman's noose. I am relieved not to see them daily nor be reminded of another time. Yet those times were not bad times. I cannot say today that my love was a lie nor its reception false.
    Still, if I want to revisit my past, I must do so in the corridors of my mind since it is my recollections of my life that hold the greatest details of 'US'.
    I have reduced my life to the barest minimum. A tv purchased on the eve of my children's birth; a bamboo settee, a bed; and most important of all-a coffee machine.
    Plastic? I have no need for it. I have nothing to put in plastic. The things that I have and are dearest to me will never go in plastic-they are safeguarded in my memory, viewed by my mindes eye when they are coaxed out by the Charli's of this world.

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  5. Thanks for all of your comments....

    that has (had) to be my motto over the last while as well, CD....one step at a time, one day at a time, one minute at a time....sometimes it's all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. I do try to at least "appear" normal, but, I swear to god, I am crumbling and crumbling inside....I can feel "me" eroding away into nothing and, sometimes, just when I think I am starting to feel better, the tears come, and they don't stop. That is when I realize just how long a road this will be.

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  6. Funny post, sad picture, encouraging mindset.

    That being said, I'm really intrigued by the first baggy :P

    More seriously though, take care of yourself Charli.

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