old stuff

i was cleaning my room this weekend--throwing out dead pens, wiping dust into little movable hills, recycling mail from the schools i didn't go to (i.e. the lives i could have led)--and i stumbled on a couple of things.

• gold colored earrings with plastic rubies (given to me before I had piercings and which I'm wearing now because my piercings are starting to close).
• a christmas letter from j.c. attached to a christmas music cd and bible study software.
• a purple easter egg completely filled with bone colored shell and stone fragments.
• three cassette tapes of 90s music i recorded from KIIS FM b/c i couldn't afford the albums (lately, i've been watching you, been thinking bout you baby, and everything you do...etc.)
• an edition of the church publication in which n.w., s.l., e.y., and i had written articles.
• a cd that r.t. gave me of p.c. and her singing together (to which i fell asleep one night when i was in the hospital).
• relay for life 24 hour sign up sheets.

though i hardly gave any of them more than a minute's thought, these things made me remember the past. they are also the kinds of things i will probably have fewer of as i get older, since i throw away more now, taking into consideration the fact i will probably be nomadic for quite some time and each move will be more cumbersome the more i collect and re-collect. i almost threw the tapes away so i wouldn't have to waste time listening to check what was on them before discarding them. awful, isn't it? not so much the loss of awareness of what's valuable, but the active allowing of that loss to occur--self-inflicted alzheimer's. because deep down in my very small heart, i knew that if i stopped to listen to those tapes, i would end up having to think about all the space/time issues of my life that are either counterfactuals or have no resolution.