It's Not Joy That Things Spark. It Is Memory

Today has been a struggle. I'm always in a state of what I call "existential angst" when I wake up but some mornings it's not a joke at all. Those are the days that tears are involved and I truly wonder why in hell I'm still here with everything in and on my body breaking down and hurting and then of course I feel guilty because I have a BEAUTIFUL life and I have a BEAUTIFUL home and I have an incredibly BEAUTIFUL AND LOVING HUSBAND AND FAMILY and in all regards, I am about as healthy as a woman my age should be and so on and so forth and let me tell you something that you probably know as well as I do- guilt only makes us feel worse and compounds the feelings of worthlessness and here you have the necessary ingredients of a really bad mental soup. And let me hasten to add- it's not like I'm feeling poor me, oh, poor me. It's more like I'm feeling Jesus Christ you silly, pathetic bitch. Shut the fuck up. 

So. I procrastinated as long as I could and then I took a little walk. When I passed Harvey's on the way home, he yelled out "hey" to me and I yelled out "hey" to him and I think he said something about good for me for walking and I said something like I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do it and he said that he can't and indicated a bad leg. I told him that I really like all of his new pots of sago palms. The man must have a dozen of them at least and he keeps arranging them in different places in his yard and in different ways. He said that he's trying to get rid of all the junk in his yard and make things look nice. I told him it was looking pretty good already. He weed-whacks his yard daily as far as I can tell. 
Bless Harvey. 

So then I came home and hung some laundry on the line and didn't do much of anything else for hours. I have been contemplating all those mugs you see up there in that picture and wanting to get rid of most of them because honestly- how many mugs does one couple need? But just as with everything else I own, there are emotional attachments associated with each one which is exactly how the woman in the book I just read started- each and every thing that came into her life became a totem, a memory for something she did not want to forget. I honestly do not think I'm in danger of becoming a hoarder but I completely understand that sort of illogical thinking, attaching emotions to objects, as well as thinking that I might well need whatever that object is sometime in the future. 
But come on. 

No. 

Another thing I wanted to clear out was the CD's I had crammed into drawers. I haven't listened to most of those hundreds of CD's in years. Listen- I have the first CD I ever got. Joni Mitchell's "Blue." I looked at the mugs. I looked at the drawers. I opened the drawers and began to look at the individual CD's and I was just so overwhelmed. 
So I went to the GDDG and got some boxes out of their recycling container and came home and did get rid of all but one row of the mugs and then I went through the CD's and got rid of many of those. Many. 
But not all. 
Which does not feel like success, somehow. 
Still, it's something. 

And then I cleaned all of the pictures and the seashells and tortoise shells and the stuff on top of that little vanity that all those CD's had been stored in and cleaned the vanity and polished the glass and put everything back together although I did toss a few things or at least move them to other places which is not really the answer to the problem but again, it's a start. 

At least it looks a little better. 

So that's what I did. 

A few pictures.

That's an aloe vera blossom and as you may be able to see, the bed it's in is completely full of aloe vera plants, each of which has saw-tooth edges that will cut you like, well, a saw. Also, dewberry vines which have the sharpest little prickles you ever did see. Or feel. And cleaning that area up is also on my endless list of things I need to do. I should probably just get rid of all of the aloe veras. Once again- when was the last time I used aloe for a burn? 
Uh...I have no idea. 

But then we have these. The first of the camellia sasangua to bloom in my yard this year. Just knowing that the camellia japonica will be blooming in a month or two is reassuring and a bright glimmer of goodness.

Please forgive my whinging. Hopefully I'll have a better mindset tomorrow. 

"Mindset." Now that's a word, isn't it? Wouldn't it be great if we could just change our mindset as easily as changing our clothes? 
"Hold on.  This mindset just does not suit me. I'll be right back with another."

There are those who say we can. Happiness is a choice! 
Yes. And losing weight is easy. Just eat less and exercise more! 
Am I right?

Sure. 

Love...Ms. Moon