For now

I don't know where it comes from, whether it has roots in an early failed relationship, or it's just dumped in our DNA, that we will always fight ourselves and change around us to the point that we keep things that don't work. Broken. A clock that tells the correct time twice a day. That pair of pants with the gaping tear from the inseam to your crotch that you will never, ever fix or wear again. People who have outlived their interest in you but not your usefulness to them. It's not so much a collection as it is you becoming sticky and heavier as a result of all the toasters, socks, pairs of sat-on glasses, and emotional collateral damage that you keep with you to remind yourself that you're...

...well, hang on. You're not anything but human, in all honesty. The first thing you can't say is that you're not worthy of happiness. That's just dumb. Yep, it's your first thought, but...okay, have the thought then get over it. Everyone deserves happiness. It is free, after all. It's just easier to chase down when you're not rattling with junk and dropping broken crap everywhere. The second thing you can't say is that true love or happiness doesn't exist. Try reading damnyouautocorrect for five minutes with a frown on your face. You can't do it. Also, try laying next to a purring cat or walk towards a dog wagging its tail so fast at the sight of you it's whole hind quarter is doing a doggy salsa (I just added a soundtrack to that in your mind - you're welcome). It all exists, and is there for the taking with a huge sign on it that reads "FREE - please take as much as you need."

But still we doubt. And still we hang on to clutter, standing at that place in the woods where two roads diverged, staring down both paths, not moving. The clock ticks, we get older, and all that remains broken hasn't miraculously fixed itself. Broke stays broke. Living things grow. That's kind of how it works. We ignore it. "SOMEDAY this waffle iron will come in handy," we think. "Someday I'll co-exist." Someday all of this will make sense. But "someday" is just a terrible tease of a prize we keep pushing out towards the horizon, causing us to chase after the sun forever. When that someday actually comes, it catches us so off guard that we don't even recognize it, acknowledge it, or even give it any value. It came and went. And we think that "someday our time will come," when it's either happening right now or it already passed us by. Tragic.

So how do you let go of that sentimental, sticky clutter that was never fashionable to wear or carry in the first place? How do you NOT let everything around you - at least the things you're paying attention to - define you? Let's face it; The things that are making you anxious just might be invisible to everyone else (including the clutter). My only answer for years was work, and more work. As long as I was busy, I didn't notice anything else. That doesn't work any more. The work I'm busy with is fighting back.

This only changes the view of the whole thing from the middle of the mosh pit to a fisheye overview of the entire picture, and no pin saying "You belong here."
So I ask myself now: Is what I'm doing meaningful? Am I making a difference? Is any of it important or unique, or am I completely replaceable?

Do I belong?

I have worked with people who became irrelevant, who got lost deep in the machine and ended up a stripped gear spinning wildly independent of it all. And they became clutter in a place without sentimentality. So...in the wake of this...and wow, I never quite realized how much these people have served as a warning to me....as I sort all of this out, I need to find out what's fueling the fire, and not just starting it. What starts the fire most of the time nowadays is trying to do the right thing. It's making the most use of the things I can do and try to do the greater good. And by greater good, I don't mean making one person look or feel good. By greater good...I need to reach and help more people. I have wide base of entertainment in me and am standing in shallow waters. I think I know what I need to do.

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are. It just might be time to say goodbye to an amazing and random collection of things that don't work any more.