Letting go is difficult and maybe painful
 

Yeah. I guess I'm not really ready to start this thread, still processing stuff.

Processing publicly is always a possibility. Don't mind us.

It will happen. Ready or not.

Whatever it is, I prolly hear ya and feelz ya.

Hang in there foot3.

In your dreams, do you find yourself mired in how it used to be? Do you feel relieved when you wake up? I did.

When you're done processing, you won't need this thread, even if you remember it. The appeal on doing this thread is forcing yourself to organize your thoughts in order to put them down on paper pixels.

It might help to put it on paper and edit, rewrite, edit some more, until you're sure how you feel. Then wait a day and read it... edit, rewrite, edit some more.
However, I'll warn you up front, I guarantee your feelings about some things will change, will evolve over time. ;)

Just editing your thoughts about it with help you put things in the right frame.

I'mma start.

I told my shrink on my first appointment that I had arrived at this* point in my life by means of a long series of poor decisions and choices based on questionable and faulty information. (bad intel)

Some of you have been following my trajectory over the past years, viz injury, devolving marriage, depression, unemployment, chronic health issues, and so on. The last year or so has been perhaps the darkest and worst time of my life and my most depressed.

A few weeks ago, a great friend of mine came to visit in order to help me clean up the house, clear out trash, re-organize things and help sort stuff to be tag saled, put up on ebay, or craigslist. Partly to help me climb out of the hell hole I've been in, partly to raise cash, and partly to pre-emptively clear out the house in the probably inevitable event the bank forecloses on the property.

I'm leaving out a lot of details here, the upshot is that I probably should have pulled the plug on my marriage a lot sooner and a whole host of other should'ves, would'ves, and could'ves.

After my friend's visit the house looked amazingly better, my mood improved significantly, and I've begun to take steps to get my life on track. In the best case scenario it will be a few years before I am solvent and I will still have the house. My failsafe is chap. 13, although I may not be eligible soon enough.

One of the things my buddy helped me wrap my head around was changing my perspective, deciding what was important to me, and thinking about things in terms of whether they are helping move the program forward or holding it back.

One of the immensely liberating feelings was throwing things away. Where before I'd look at my old broken down $49. Home Depot garden cart and think, "It needs 4 inner tubes, the rims need ot be sand blasted and painted, and the handle needs to be welded..." followed by, "fuck, that;s a lot of money that I don't have right now." and then, "fuck my life." After throwing it away, the problem is solved, it didn't cost me a penny and it no longer gives me recriminating stares when I walk by.

Multiply that by 100 and my mood lightened considerably.

And deciding to sell a lot of shit I no longer use had a similar effect, I no longer had to think about it or deal with it and it would bring in some $$. I discovered that a shitload of bike paraphernalia that I'd saved since the 80s is now vintage and sought after as collectible. Great. Sell it.

The difficult part has to do with my photo gear and I'll have to write about that tomorrow or Sunday. It has a long and emotionally charged, complicated, thorny, sticky, confusing, frustrating, fearful and sad aspect to it that I am still unravelling. Part Gordian knot, part trying to bite a basketball.

That's the start.


*This, in a nutshell, being: 55, single parent, unemployed, facing foreclosure, trained in a career that doesn't really exist any more, hunting for a job that will pay well enough for me to survive that doesn't require a new 4 year degree

Glad to hear that this practical step has helped you to feel a bit better. And kudos to your friend for stepping up with practical assistance :thumb:

And even if the effort fails to produce the end result we are hoping for, you'll be busier and happier in the meantime. So it's a win, that will hopefully become a win win. :thumb:

Well played brother.

I don't have the kind of camera gear that you have, but it felt good to sell mine. It's depressing to see how little you get for the gear compared to how much you put into the gear, but clearing out the space and getting a little extra money was good.

If it was top of the line gear, you can still sell it. If it's not top of the line gear, it's worthless, and will bring down the value of what you are trying to sell if you include it in the batch.

There's an Ebay thread around here somewhere that documented my experiences pretty well.

I'm glad you feel like you are heading in the right direction, even if you still have a way to go.

I'm glad your buddy was there for you. Physically cleaning out a space is really, really good for the mind.

I hated cleaning out my house. I left a LOT of shit behind. I didn't have to keep living there, though....

That was probably the most depressing thing I remember doing. The first couple times I went, I just sat on the back step and looked out at the back yard where the kids used to play and sighed a lot. guh.

The bike shit is a different story. If you piece meal it you can actually do well. You may want to use Pink Bike instead of ebay though.