BipolarLawyerCook

I should be rest­ing, I know, now while they don’t know what’s mak­ing me woozy and weak
but I need to do some­thing when I’m not used to lying here idle,
and I’ve got friends com­ing soon.  I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing them, ever so much.

Cleaning’s not an urge I get often, so when the urge comes, I’ll take it.
Broom, plas­tic bag, recy­cle bin, check.  Stor­age bins, maybe,
and at least I can put stuff into piles so I’ve got some idea.  I can make lists.  I like lists.

I can’t for­get a fan, a ban­dana, an open win­dow,
a tall glass of water.  It is mid-July and even with the rain of this morn­ing, it’s awfully humid.
Still, it’s more than time that I got on top of things.

The finan­cial papers– so long unlooked-at for that wave of panic at all things legal-financial
are all scat­tered across bags and boxes. At least I can put them into one box,
con­dense them into one place Pan­dora, and Hope that I can deal with it soon.

And the old clothes from the old job I’ll never go back to, the ones that need clean­ing–
the ones I’ll do what with?  Sell?  Give away?  I’m not sure I can afford the dry-cleaner’s bill for them all.
At least they can go into bags to shove into the closet until the company’s gone.

The win­ter clothes I’m going to keep can go into con­tain­ers and down into the base­ment, Christ­mas orna­ments too.
The dust and dirt can be swept and tossed if I’m care­ful about lean­ing over– take things delib­er­ately.
The books can be sorted into keep and not-keep.  Sell or donate– that I can decide a lit­tle bit later.

The party clothes from last summer’s wed­dings– the ones I barely made my way through,
so mis­er­able as I was, heav­ier in body and soul as I pasted a smile on and wished them the best–
I’ll send those to the cleaner’s, they won’t fit any more, meta– or physically.

I’ve changed, for bet­ter or worse, and at least I’m aware of that fact.
This last year’s at least brought self-consciousness to me,
even if hap­pi­ness is still some­thing I’m chasing.

Clar­ity– or grop­ing towards it, I guess comes first in the effort.
And for some­thing to be clear, you do have to move the clut­ter off of the sur­face,
wipe off the grime, sweep off the mouse-scamper of I-am-afraid-and-don’t-make-me-face-it.

My jew­elry box is also a mess– lots of pins I won’t wear again on suits I won’t use,
lots of pieces my mother gave me that I never did like and never did wear– except when she was here,
some­times, and not even then, because it wasn’t my taste and she never did learn.

A small part of me wants to throw all of it out, since right now I’m angry,
but there are pieces I do like and which some­times I wear.  Just because I need a break
doesn’t mean I have to toss every gift she ever gave.  Some were quite valu­able– I do know that much.

And that red suit, and maybe the bright cobalt blue.  I could have them tai­lored to fit my new, smaller frame.
Most of them should prob­a­bly go.  I could use the space and could get rid of some emo­tional bag­gage.
But I always sus­pected a spic-and-span house.  Why should I toss all of my past, when not all of it’s painful?

And if some of it stays in a box for just a bit longer– well–
I’m still going to pat myself on the back for the con­den­sa­tion of things, and the fact that I even looked at
it to begin with and I know that it’s there.  I’ll delib­er­ate upon it some more as I make room for my friends.