[footfootfoot]

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