I was an unusual child. Every few months I had the desire to take out my dad’s old Monopoly game and sit down with it for an hour or two. Being far too young to understand the mechanics of the game, I would organize it instead—facing all of the bills, organizing the property deeds by color, lining up the tokens and houses and motels. After it was laid out before me in a perfect arrangement, I would put everything back in the box. Sometimes I would unpack it immediately thereafter and repeat the process. When I was finished with this strange ritual, satisfied that it was organized and taken care of, I would put the lid back on the box and stow the game away in the closet for several months.
When I was older, a similar impulse drove me to occasionally organize my room. I would obsessively go through the toys, books, and oddities that I had collected over the last several months. After sorting them, I would rearrange them, dispose of a few, and put each kept item away in its designated place. My room was usually quite clean.
I still have this impulse. Sometimes I get in a very strange mood and, after enduring it for several days, remember that I have shit that I need to organize and sift through, evaluate and discard or keep as appropriate. This time it’s not a Monopoly game or toys that are at the center of my project, though, but my mind and my heart and my self.
Today I realized that I hadn’t really taken an inventory of the contents of me for quite some time—nearly nine or ten months, maybe longer—and that I was way overdue for a major fucking overhaul.
So you there—yes, you—you are being snipped out and discarded. I don’t need you around any more. You’ve lost your luster.
And that pesky memory that keeps cropping up in my dreams? Yeah, I’m finished with you, too. You’re not good for me any more. You’re not doing me any good.
It’s nothing personal, but I have way too much to deal with to continue keeping this stuff in my life. I need to make room for some new shit—new people, new feelings, new memories. The current stuff isn’t sustaining me any more. It’s cluttering my life and making things far too difficult to make sense of.
Give it a few months and I won’t remember what got tossed out. And you, memories and dreams and hopes and selves of an earlier life, you’ll forget, too.
And soon there won’t be anything left for us to regret.
January 19th, 2009
by Heather
this will probably not come as a surprise to you, seeing that our lives have been mirroring each others ever so slightly as of recently (or we are just starting to recognize it) but I also share this compulsion. i started rearranging and reorganizing when I was seven. No one could figure out how I could get all the furniture moved around just being a little kid, and regularly at that. I think I started doing it in response to my parent’s divorce- but what is interesting is that now that I am older nothing can really de-stress me more effectively than merchandising an entire display (if I am at work) or really taking something apart just to put it back together again.
And also, when my friends and I play monopoly I always end up arranging all the houses and hotels and it is common to hear, “there she goes again”. But I can’t not do it.
Good riddance to mediocrity. I invite you to join me in raising the standard of excellence this year.
h
March 9th, 2009
by Amy Sirignano
Regrets, never.
Reevaluate, discard, and learn.
Maintain your wildest dreams and passions. They do come true, especially when you aren’t looking.
True love does exist, even if for a night.
Chapters end and new ones begin, and most times you don’t have control over the timing of the commencement or conclusion.
I am inspired by your thoughts. . .