A lot of thoughts have been banging around in my head and I don't know what to do with them except to purge and put them on paper...so to speak. On paper I was, at one point, successful. I had a "real" job and made lots of money and had a few too many houses. I was married...on paper. I'm not sure if it was how I was raised or just society's influence that molded my thoughts, but now what I look like on paper is what I use to consider a train wreck. Strange how I don't feel like a failure. I actually feel unencumbered and somehow enlightened.
Mentioned a lot is my ever increasing need of minimalism. I create a very small footprint on the earth. I am aware that I have big feet and actually make very odd footprints...but that's in sand, talking big picture here. At the bar this week was a couple that travels all summer to avoid the desert heat where they live in the winter. The subject of living simple came up. Pretty sure I quoted some Fight Club (note- not a week goes by that I don't find a conversation to mix a little Fight Club quoting into.) Anyhow, she introduced me to the 12 Hanger Theory of Relativity. Actually its 12 hangers and 2 boxes. You can get all you truly need to live on and in that. I think that this theory would work best if you lived somewhere sans season changes of course. Counted my hangers earlier and guess what...only 12. Granted I have some shit that needs purging in another closet. I have a winter clothes mass exodus planned for the coming weeks. I'm ditching most everything and if I start getting cold then I'm counting it as Divine Intervention that I need to head souther til the weather suits my clothes. Live small enough and you can fit just about anywhere.
I've been struggling lately. When I was a kid I was led to believe that we grow up, get married, have kids, buy a house, be responsible. I only knew a few divorced people and like most when things go south they would crash back in with parents, get their shit back in one sock, then take off again only to wind up hitting a big replay button and doing the same thing different version over again. Back to how I was raised...I was brought up to think of this as being the wrong course of action I suppose...I'm not sure. But here I am...37 years old...looking incredibly bad on paper doing pretty much the exact same thing. I have a very different opinion of my those people now. The ones that's lives looked messy. I think I see the world the same way they all did. Maybe my parent's very structured settled "normal" life is what makes me struggle so with my polar opposite version of life on this spinning ball. If I had no built in perception of normal I wouldn't feel so unnormal. I've been trying to think of it as squatting in Daddy's paradise. Given the chance he would probably trade the world to have my life right now. Today is his birthday...third removed. He would have been 65. No idea why it all still shakes my head up so much. Crazy how time goes by. Crazy how grounded I still am at being ungrounded. And all I really hope is that he wouldn't see me as a loser. Tell me I don't need more shit to worry about.
