Status Updates

I left Facebook. Temporarily. I thought I would be gone, oh, maybe three weeks. Instead I was gone almost two months. It was so hard to return. But I did. When I returned, I decided to spend a couple of days catching up all who wanted to read about what went on while I was gone. Because I delete my Facebook wall every week, and because I want to keep the stories I wrote, I am transferring them here.

Status Update:

• Story #1: I deactivated my FB account. Why? I don't know. It was a gut feeling. The world has been spinning in wonderful ways since.


• Story #2: Last month I told my landlord that if he didn't fix this problem I would call the Board of Health. This photo was taken when the leak in the ceiling was small. (You should see it now)




• Story #3: I got my hair cut. Short. Why? I don't know. I was sitting at Great Clips waiting for my son to finish getting his hair cut when I thought, "Do it! If you don't like it, it will grow out." I love it. I can have happy hair, angry hair, calm hair,and bad-hair-days. Short hair is so versatile.




• Story #4: I announced to friends at a Sunday brunch that I was going to move out of the house by the end of September. I've had it! So what if the rent is cheap. I feel cheap. I also am afraid that some day a rodent will fall through the ceiling or that my tub will fall through to the living room.




• Story #5: The next day my landlord asked me to move out. ASAP. Like yesterday. The Board of Health threat did it. So I start looking for a place to move to.


• Story #6: Started reading Walden by Thoreau.


• Story #7: I wanted to live downtown Indianapolis. I love downtown. I love all the activity and how close it all is. So I started looking for a place downtown.




• Story #8: In preparation for the eventual move I decided to purge everything pre-2002. So I grabbed all my journals and diaries (from 6th grade on) and lit a fire in a cement flower pot and burned each page. THERAPY! Once that got started, everything else from my childhood was easily disposed. I only kept my baby pictures.


• Story #9: After 3 weeks of not being on FB I stopped thinking in Status Updates. After 4 weeks I stopped thinking of FB. After 5 weeks FB no longer existed for me. There was a huge liberation in not being on FB.


• Story #10: I disconnected the internet. Suddenly I felt more human than android. Odd. I didn't know I had become part android.


• Story #11: After 3 years working for the School Of Informatics I finally took a week off. I was possessed by the Purge Demon. I needed to get rid of excess crap. Also, I needed to find an apartment.


• Story #12: Trashed: two fully-loaded, body-sized trash cans. Goodwill: 14 boxes & 10 lawn-sized bags.Unwanted furniture piled in the livingroom waiting to be disposed (to various people...if you are looking for something, I may have it--just ask;free for the most part). My son's comment a week later: "I thought you were getting rid of things!"


• Story #13: I couldn't afford downtown living. I reassessed what was important for me in an apartment and after spending 3 years in a house that's rotting and a neighborhood that has seen its share of sirens and police, I opted for safety. I can't afford downtown safety.



• Story #14: An emotional weekend convinced me that I was in this alone. So on Labor Day I power-down my phone. Suddenly, my bones went silent. And for the first time I felt completely human. It was glorious.


• Story #15: when I disconnected the internet it only affected my son and me. I had my Droid so I still had access. When I disabled FB it affected some friends who didn't know I had disabled it. But when I powered down my phone all hell broke loose. I have been told that if I do that again Iam to check in frequently.


• Story #16: during all this I kept looking for an apt. I found it. I don't know if it's because the owner knows all his tenants, or if it's because his tenants make it a point to say hi to him or if it's because people will stay there for years. Or maybe it's his calm voice. I signed a lease.


• Story #17: I think I'm done with the stories. I'm all caught up. I'm packing. Will be taking possession on the 1st. North side of Indy. I have furniture I'm trying to give away. See my mobile photos for items, if you are interested.

What surprised me most were all the comments on my stories. I didn't include them here because this post then becomes cumbersome. But it was delightful hearing from friends and getting their thoughts and reactions.

Returning

Coming? Going?

I admit. I strayed. I went to Wordpress. But now I'm back. I strayed from Thoroughly Urban, also. But now I'm back.

So much has changed...not in the last eight and a half months I've been gone from here–hardly anything has happened over the last eight months. It has been within the last half a month. I have stories to tell, but not right now.

Right now I just need to come back. To get started. To stay started.

If I don't love it, I'll get rid of it

When I moved into this house I promised myself that the only things that I would ever let "live" in my bedroom were things that I loved. You see, I'm notorious for scavenging any old thing because it might some day become useful. It's a relic from my Scottish mother who was born near the Great Depression.

The one voice that I have to extract from my mental coding is my mother's voice (and actions and insistence) that constantly reminds me: I might need it some day.

That's the voice of a pack rat, of a hoarder, of one who is so afraid of scarcity that instead they have too much. Unfortunately, it's too much of nothing!!!! Of nothing that means anything. It's all junk.

I had a room that I called my Dorian Gray room. It was the room into which I stuffed all those things that someday I might use. I just shut the door and forgot about it. But it sat there and in darkness reflected my scarcity mentality. Yes, it was all shut up away, but it determined my daily life.

Then my son moved in and I had to move all that stuff. Guess where it ended up? Most of it is in my bedroom...the one room I wanted so much to be sacrosanct against the scarcity mentality that lives deep within my cells.

I have complained about being forced to take off the time between Christmas and New Years. It terrifies me. Yes. Terrifies me. Because I know the part deep inside me that wants to rid myself of this scarcity thinking will hound me to get rid of things...things that I think I will some day need! Aieeee!

There's more to being forced to take this time off, but I knew this whole scarcity thing would raise its head.

So now I'm up in my room with a broom sweeping EVERYTHING that isn't a bed and dresser into the middle of the floor.



And here's what I'm going to do. My promise.

If I don't love it I will get rid of it.

How's that? My house is too small to store anything that I don't love. My life is too precious to be occupied with things that I don't love. This is incredibly frightening because eventually it will extend to the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen, and (gulp) to the world outside.

There's no room for that which you do not love.