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gominokouhai) wrote2016-03-15 01:22 am
On ink and capability
[This was going to be a comment in reply to someone else's blog, but it wandered a little....]
I found an ink cartridge yesterday. I don't use ink cartridges, because it's not the 1930s. It was in an unused pocket of the belt pouch I use when travelling. At some point, years ago, we must have swapped pouches.
An ink cartridge. Very nearly gave me a relapse.
I thought about it for fifteen seconds, did a little mindful breathing, and tossed it.
I was fortunate, maybe, that shortly after my breakup and meltdown I was compelled to move cities on short notice. It forced me to rationalize: to determine the minimum necessary amount of Stuff with which I can live in reasonable comfort. It forced me to discard Stuff that I might otherwise have insisted on retaining as a keepsake. I had to pack all my Stuff into a single 1950s Admiralty-pattern kitbag and, as a result, it forced me to learn self-reliance at a point in my life when that's exactly what I needed.
Give me a sandwich toaster, a device with mobile internet, a change of underwear, and Kilkerran sherry wood, and I shall move the Earth.
I'm also fortunate that I could leave the rest of the crap in the flat and trust my staff to throw it out for me. The company billed me for it afterwards and they way they went about it was kind of dickish, but it helped a lot to have someone else deal with that for me. I could focus on the moving on.
And then there are things like this ink cartridge. The ink cartridge is a metaphor. We must have swapped pouches years ago: we bought two identical ones in the outdoor supplies shop in Aviemore, 2012 or so. I've been carrying her ink cartridge around for ages without realizing it. Yesterday I was able to dispose of it. A little bit more moving on was achieved.
Things like this are going to keep happening, piece by piece, with no end in sight, but each one is a step in the right direction, although it often doesn't feel like it at the time.
At some point, when I'm back in Edinburgh, I'm going to have to deal with the storage container, 80% of which is still filled with her Stuff (and which I'm still paying for). Does anyone have a need for several boxes of ladies' size 12 underwear?
(Isn't there a womens' shelter in Edinburgh? Is this the sort of thing they might want?)
I added pajh's Rule for Life #40 to the list last week, while I was down in That London, drinking in the pub with some friends. It is this: Never let someone else define who you are.
An obvious corollary is not to let yourself be defined by their Stuff, either. In fact, never let Stuff define you.
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Good luck sorting through her stuff.
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(Anonymous) 2016-03-15 08:54 am (UTC)(link)Happy to help sort through things with you and lend moral support while I'm at it.
-- Alex
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[Several BOXES?]
Suggestions on how to deal with her Stuff:
- establish a fair but firm deadline for when all the Stuff will no longer be your responsibility and when you will be closing down the storage locker. You broke up in *scrolls back rapidly* July? And she was definitely out of the country in September, and she's never bothered to let you know (even indirectly) what to do with her Stuff that you're paying to store? Yeah, that's more than enough time. Obviously you don't want to be vindictive [REALLY, YOU DON'T] and bin her beautiful hand-made widgets out of spite, but if these things meant that much to her, she'd have dealt with the locker herself or shipped them. As someone who moved cross-continents several times, and once had to retrieve some of my Stuff from my ex-boyfriend after his BITCH OF A WIFE STOLE MY BOOKS AND DUMPED THE REST ON THE PAVEMENT OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSE, trust me on this one.
- put out the word among people who knew her in case she was holding onto anyone else's Stuff (see: the comment from the person who would like the video back). Tell them the deadline.
- since you seem to be on speaking terms with her family, ask them if there is any Stuff they would like to hold onto, either for their own sentimental purposes or because they want to keep it for her. Actually, depending on your relationship with them, you could try to convince them to continue paying for the Stuff. I suspect they will understand that you no longer want to have anything to do with it. Otherwise, tell them the deadline.
- If you do end up having to do the clearout yourself, LOOK AT HER STUFF AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. Bring friends along and you could even ask them to look in the boxes and do the sorting. You do not want to be a sobbing mess all on your own in a storage locker, and it is always far easier for someone objective to deal with this sort of thing. Example:
Friend: "Hey, here's a box of widgets."
You: *SOB* OMG, WE BOUGHT A WIDGET TOGETHER IN -
Friend: *bins box of widgets*
Best of luck. No doubt I'll see you at random when you're back up here....
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THIS.
Friend: "Hey, here's a box of widgets."
You: *SOB* OMG, WE BOUGHT A WIDGET TOGETHER IN -
Friend: *bins box of widgets*
This example made me chuckle, but is true. This reminds me I have a box of things my own ex gave me, and asked me to keep in the wake of our breakup. I don't want them and I need to figure out what to do with them. I've already decided on the few things that I want to keep.
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I'd make the same suggestion to you as I did to our host - firm but fair deadline, and then bin/charity shop/suitable equivalent. No one should be required to carry around anyone else's Stuff. [Me, I have enough of my own....]
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Thank you.
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btw this post seems to be public, in case you weren't aware of that.
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A guideline to live by!