Does the Past Exist? Part 1

Today is September 20th, 2017. What you are about to read is from May something or other, 2014. Without giving to much detail, I just want to say that 2014 was the year I began realizing that I was waking up to all that surrounds me.

This is the first thing I had written in ages. Speculate with me, does this version of me really still exist, or am I continuing this story by giving it attention?

Please enjoy a little glimpse into the past:

“Today I did an important thing. I cleaned out my closet. Not as a metaphor, I literally cleaned out my hallway closet. It had for months, piled high with useless stuff, and even things I considered trash.

Each day that I opened the door and was forced to look inside, I would say to myself, “tomorrow, or my next day off, I will get to that.” I never did, actually the last time it was cleaned, someone else did. I have periodically organized my kitchen, but for the most part I am not the one who organizes my house.

Other people are bothered by clutter and things that seem useless, I used to be able to look the other way. I used to keep everything, but then something changed. I began challenging myself to get rid of things.

It was hard at first and then I realized that things don’t need to be kept. Keeping things is funny, because it seems as if we just keep things and then forget about them away. That is until one day, when boredom strikes, and you are moved to take a walk down memory lane.

You get to pull out that old note from a past love, and remember how it felt to read it for the first time. You get to look at baby clothes, and pictures until you cry. But that is the thing, about things, they hold memories for us, and that is what we can’t let go of. We love clinging to our memories.

I used to love greeting cards, I would save all my favorite cards, but now I beg you, just text me. I used to save all the best school/art work the kids did, now I am so selective I feel like an asshole. I can’t save it all, and here I am wondering why am I even saving anything at all?

All the toys, and clothes, those things, I know we don’t need, but why do I feel so sad as I haul it away to Goodwill? It is baby clothes not the actual baby I am getting grid of! We already have too much as it is. It is actually sort of sad, we have all this stuff in our home, and only half or less than half gets used. Sort of like the human brain, I guess.

So I clean out my closet and it felt great. I trashed a few things, organized everything, and unearthed some things that maybe useful as well. I accomplished something today before 12:00 pm and it feels great.

I could have exercised but I didn’t, I ate a sandwich instead. I needed to sort out some things in my brain, and I guess the closet was a good place to start. Before I started, I looked around, I saw numerous things that needed to be cleaned, but that never ends so it can wait. I looked at my stack of bills, and decided to walk away, that is also for another day. I know my need for perfection before brilliance is impossible, but I continue to work on trying to accomplish both.

Like now, I am writing everything I think. I am just writing it, I am doing the hard and tedious work that seems like it will get me nowhere, but I know that I need to start now, because it is bursting from inside of me. I feel the energy building from within my body and it literally makes my bones, joints, and brain ache with actual pain.

I need to believe that it is not nervous energy. That, it is not anxiety or anger trying to escape. I need to know that it is just borrowed energy that needs to be returned. I have been building it and building it, and now it is screaming “let me out.” The thought that I have all of the universe pulsing though me and begging to be shared, is too much the fathom.

I am storing, not sharing this energy inside of me, and I know to loosen my pain I have to let it out and give it back. I have to put it to good use. Like laying in the grass, or sweating on a rock, or letting my tears drip to the ground. I need to give it back.

Here I am on a perfect Saturday, writing in my closet, once again not my “figurative closet,” I am literally sitting in my closet. Not the one I cleaned out earlier, but my bedroom closet. I actually quite like it in this closet. I do spend a good deal of time in this closet, picking out clothes and shoes, making sure Christmas presents are well hidden.

For now, I am just in here because it is quite literally the most quiet place in my house. It is not silent by any means. Frankly, my home is very loud. You can hear everything through these walls and on top of that my family operates at a level of intensity that I don’t understand.

I can hear Rielynn’s music and the bathroom fan, and I can hear a little noise coming from the TV. Me, well I am just sitting waiting for something amazing to happen.

I went to my hall closet this morning after waking from a very restful nights sleep, by restful I mean a NyQuil and Benadryl induced coma, because I have a pretty nasty cold. The cold aside, I woke feeling full of energy, and for some reason had a desire to write.

I went to my closet looking for some old poetry I wrote as a teenager. I wanted to read it to feel or find the muse, or some shit like that, but what I found was a mess”