Closing Tabs

A Living Alive Letter Series

Original image credit to Zulfugar Karimov

My Dear Wonderlings,

Number my days. Number my days. The phrase beats in the back of my mind like a steady pulse, urgently rhythmic yet not alarming, at least not physically. Five months. Nearly half a year has passed me by while I’m still stuck in January. My brain is a computer browser with too many tabs left open. No wonder my mental software glitches so often. So, this year, I will continue my Living Alive letter series by beginning the process of closing those tabs.

I recently downsized. My sister volunteered to be my roommate while we both got our careers up and running. The plus side to this is significantly reduced rent; the downside is the significantly decreased living space. Our tiny flat consists of the two small kid bedrooms in the upper wing of our parents’ house. This new arrangement holds many challenges. The biggest one being I am a, ahem, collector, maximalist decorator, master of the art of I-might-need-that-later. Also an open tab. I’ve been meaning to go through my things for a while now. And I mean all of it. This may not seem like a lot, especially from the perspective of one with twenty years on me and a house full of memories, but my space consists of nearly three decades of existence. Thirty years is a rather significant amount of time. What does it take to close such a tab of mindless accumulation? I need to shift away from vague thoughts or ideas that implore me to keep everything.

I’ll fix that later becomes Is this worth my time. If I haven’t fixed it in the past 365 days, I won’t fix it. Period. 

I can still use that becomes Do I need to still use this. I really hate wastefulness. Hate is not a word I use on a regular basis, but I use it here. To eliminate any guilt in this department, I look at my financial blessings and ask myself— How long have I had this? Will an upgrade benefit me more? Does this bring me joy?  In other words, is this wasted on me?  I do my best to balance frugal living and enjoying the blessings that come with living in 21^st century America. It is quite possible I am the one being wasteful by keeping said item in storage rather than giving it away where someone might actually use or enjoy it.

I might need that becomes Is this useful now and Will I definitely need this in the future. Certain items should go in storage because when my sister and I can afford a place together, I will actively use them every day. The rest is wasted on me because the answer to these questions is usually no, I won’t need this. If I haven’t needed it in the past 365 days and cannot conjure in my mind a realistic image (emphasis on realism) of using it in the future, I won’t use it. Anything else sounds more like trust issues than preparedness.

Nostalgic things are harder to deal with because, as previously mentioned, some of my keepsakes are nearly thirty years old, which is honestly quite a long period of time for a material object that physically degrades with time. When I look at them, I often see vivid images and scenes in my head of where I was,  what I was doing, who I was with, and how I was feeling at that given moment. Some items, like old Bibles, I kept because I thought I had to, but I don’t. So I got rid of them. I took a few pictures of meaningful pages, but other than that I cannot picture my granddaughter being all that enthused about rifling through overly highlighted pages and dates in the margines I can’t even remember the significance of. I did however keep trinkets, even actual garbage that I believe represent me in some meaningful way, like a paperclipped empty casing set of some of my favorite tea flavors. A little weird? Yes. Technically trash? Also yes. But I love tea. I also asked myself Can I just write about this or keep a picture instead?  Because, like my Bibles, many things can be discarded with just a picture or a jotted memory.

What I did keep focused on representation more than anything because I want to set my ducks in a row if this makes any sense. Life happens, and while I am not planning on dying any time soon, I have no control over this, so I care about what I would be leaving behind—Number my days. I know it sounds morbid, but I believe a large part of my frazzled mental state comes from my living without any thought to making my days count. And I cannot move forward until I have closed the tab of the past.

I love history, especially family history, and one common denominator I cannot help but notice in the Bible is how often God’s people find themselves in jeopardy because they forgot what God brought their ancestors through, namely Egypt and the Red Sea crossing. What if I am doing the same without realizing it? YHWH is a generational God. No wonder there are so many genealogies in the Bible. He cares. Deeply. What I do now matters because those who come after me will be affected by my actions. He designed us this way. Out of all the physical entities in this world of dirt and dust, human beings are the only eternal ones, so when I arrive in Heaven, I want to stand proudly in front of my own ancestors having honored their legacy. This requires a little digging and, thankfully, is not required for closing the tab itself, though it is a deep desire of mine. All I need to do right now is sort through my own things and take note of what else my brain requires to feel at peace about other necessities, health and finance to name a couple.

So far, I have failed at my own resolution of writing at least one letter per month this year, but it’s never too late to succeed. Tab closed.  

You Have My Sword,

Olivia

P.S. Soo, the living quarters are a little tight. I laughed out loud the other day as I basically sashayed from my bedroom to the lounge like a ballerina during a stage performance.