Frustration sets in...

Truth be told, it was already here.. but today has been especially bad. I never know how the day will go. Being an empath allows/causes you to absorb all the emotions that everyone around you feels unless you have all your shields up. I hate having shields up.

I hate reality TV. I loathe it... and at the same time, there's some of it that I'll watch. I like some of the shows on Planet Green: Wasted, 30 days etc. They do add an element of drama to things, but no forboding music and no staged for TV mess etc. It just is what it is. The point is to show you what's going on. I've taken to watching the show hoarders on occasion. This is not something that's scheduled to record on my DVR.. but if there's nothing on TV and I see it there, then I'll watch it. Well, last night I fell asleep watching it and I had recorded an episode. I finished watching it about a half hour ago.

I have a pile of packed, partially packed, and unpacked boxes in my living room. Sometimes, since it's kind of in the corner, I can just kind of tune it out. Sometimes I can't. Today, I can't. That pile of boxes has been there since ~ November. Growing, shrinking - whatever. I've been packing it since I was planning for the move to take place in January. I unpacked some boxes, repacked some boxes and tried to pack things much more efficiently than previously packed to get the number of boxes to less. I'm not renting storage and I'm not renting a moving truck. If it doesn't fit in my car and the trailer I'll be pulling - then it'll have to be shipped or left behind. End of story. Hard to believe that most of the things that I own fit into a couple of dozen boxes in the corner of my living room. The girl that used to have over 20 boxes of Christmas decorations now only has about 3. That's amazing to me. I guess I didn't really need all of that stuff - whatever it is.. Some of it was left behind with the divorce and some of it has been donated since.

I told Grey not that long ago that when I looked at that stack of boxes, I saw the hoarder's houses.. Things piled to the rafters and just mess.. He told me I was crazy. My mother is a packrat. all of her boxes are color coded, categorized and indexed. I'm not kidding. She's also a neat freak. While she's got cabinets and cabinets of stuff - figurines, dishes, etc. It's all neatly organized and regularly dusted. I can't deal with all of that crap everywhere. My house, especially since I've lived on my own, has always been spartan. I like it that way. Less mess to clean. Of course, it also makes it a bit plain. I'm planning on making things a bit more "homey" when we get moved. All that having been said, I'm not a neat freak. There is clutter. I can tolerate a certain amount of it and then I reach a threshold and I'm done.. it's garbage/donation/organizing/whatever for whatever that crap is that's laying around. It's hard to do that when you're moving? (yes I meant the question mark).

All of the uncertainty has made everything so tentative. While I feel in my heart that we're going, I fear in my mind that we won't. I hate to even put that in writing - it gives it power. So all of this uncertainty has led to keeping furniture that won't make the trip with us, but is kind of nice to have while we're still here. Beds, cabinets, shelves, tables, etc. At the same time, it's really hard to realize that we're moving when there's still a house full of crap. Ok.. it's not that bad, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

I can see that today will be spent in a combination of efforts: trying not to pull my hair out, trying to figure out how to pack a few things (like my wings and tutus), repacking a few boxes, picking up garbage and recycling, cleaning, organizing, and hopefully putting some things on craigslist. I put several things on there back in January and when they didn't sell I just didn't pursue it anymore. That needs to kick into high gear. I just can't deal with this anymore.

I also need to clear my head and I think calming the clutter and mess does that. I've already moved a lot of stuff around, prepped a cabinet to be put on craigslist and moved out of the dining room. gone through a cabinet and pulled the last few things out of it. Cleaned out/organized (a little) my bathroom supplies...and moved around some stuff... there's just so many things that I don't know what to do with or can't seem to get rid of... I've got 2 vases that I can't seem to part with and yet I know I've had that thought (should I get rid of these) at least 4 times previously.. one when I moved out with the divorce and at least 3 since then. Right now they're sitting on my counter where I will likely look at them and think the same thing a few more times before I finally either pack them or donate them. I've already got a box of stuff to donate to goodwill sitting in the dining room with everything from Christmas ornaments to  monkey t-shirts in it. When does it ever end?

At the same time that I'm doing all of that, I'm sitting here thinking to myself.. there's so much STUFF that I want to get once we get moved. Since I'm not planning on doing another cross-country move again (once I'm out there I want to stay out there), then I won't need to get rid of all of my stuff again. This is in theory of course. I suppose if I move up the west coast it could be almost or just as far.. Somehow I don't think that would happen. I don't think I want to be THAT far north... but anyway.. I hear myself saying this and think.. oh god - you're going to become just like one of them - you'll be a hoarder!

I can see that I may have had some hoarding tendencies in the past.. oh look it's on sale and oh look yes we need 5 things of bubbles or whatever.. but it's never been as bad as what they have on TV. When I helped my friend Krista clean out her mom's house I think that cured me of ever having much clutter. Krista's mom had been hoarding for about 5 years and compulsive shopping. There was garbage laying around everywhere, boxes, food, clothes, you name it... It was horrible. We cleaned out her house and I helped Krista start remodeling. The cleanout was great.. horrible for her mother. And neither one of us - Krista or myself, understood why/how it got that way. I see the mentality - holding on to stuff to ease pain.. some of us sometimes do it with food *looks away* or whatever.. but  I guess my inability to deal with junk underfoot keeps me in check. I think back to the days when my mom would ask me to go to the "back room" and look for something. Piles and stacks of boxes in this kind of scary, dark room and wondering what the method to the madness was - how it was organized etc. Now she's got shelves and shelves, and like I said everything is boxed, color coded, and indexed. it's still a disaster. I don't want to be like that. "Some" extra is ok.. it's ok to have 16 plates when you only regularly use 12.. it's ok to have 1 extra bottle of ketchup in the pantry, etc etc.. it's not ok to have 5 superman cake pans (all the same) that you purchased at Michael's because they were $1 a piece and it's not ok to have 200 canning jars when you only need 50. If you REALLY needed 50 more for a certain project - then go buy them for that specific project - but not just keeping them around.

Anyway... that all brings me to this.. I'm so ready to move on. I'm ready to be free of this space and this town and all of this stuff. I may get rid of another chunk of it once I get moved - although I'll feel stupid for hauling it all the way out there. I just am tired of being hindered/tied down here. There are a lot of things I'm tired of - like cleaning up after the cat.. I feel like she's destroying everything by puking on it or covering it with her cat hair. I'm tired of her  pulling bits of catfood out of the bowl and then stepping on them. I'm tired of getting up in the morning bleary eyed and stepping in a freshly hurled pile of cat puke.. I'm just tired of it.

I keep asking myself if all of this is necessary.. is it all a process of letting go? Will I regret it? I feel bad thinking bad thoughts about the cat, but come on... this is out of control. The excess, the packing, the cleaning, the moving stuff around, the selling, the WAITING... I would've been gone 6 months ago if I could.. it would've been insane, but I would've done it.. This is likely to be insane as well - but I can't wait to do it..

I hope that by the end of the day I'm not as frustrated - or perhaps not as frustrated by as many things. If I can make a dent in this disaster, it will be so much better - and if I can't - well.. it'll be the same story tomorrow.