You’d think it’s staggered starts, like in a race with blocks and lanes for fast runners on a track. No, it’s me.. I always feel like I am just getting into my lane, but it often proves to be a false start.. Frankly, even getting down low and in position could only happen in my dreams; I just don’t have that kind of flexibility at this time. Might get it back, but need to train for that. However, even the most enticing and rewarding goals falter on the track due to inconsistency.
So, for now, the only race I am running with myself is to declutter before the clocks runs out on my mortal time.
It’s not just reduction.
There used to be a running joke about adults who inherited family fortunes only to put themselves on the estate reduction plan, meaning their inattention or lack of spending or investment smarts saw them diminish the original nest egg, put politely.
More so than simply reducing the piles and files, I want to redistribute anything of value to others. Value not being only stuff or finances. An upcoming surgery and hospitalization, some years back motivated me to draw up a will. You know, just in case, I thought it was the mature thing to do. “It sounds like what would be left to distribute after settlement of taxes and accounts,” said the lawyer, “would just be ‘residue.’
For me, crystallising my legacy by somehow ‘packaging up’ my memories, life lessons, insights and any smart things I have to share from observations to humour to the names of ancestors so they won’t be forgotten. I’d like to say what I didn’t have the chance to say when my kids were small, or had their weekends divided between divorced households or when I lost them to their focus on friends and then work and life partners. I’d like them to know some of our family stories so that they and their children may connect the dots on their identity and possibly their talents and inclinations. These are details no one else, no random friend in the future, nor AI can fill in for them.
I have a signed document to cover the legalities as a whole, but the goods and their designated getters are still not sorted.
Calling on my writing skills, I know editing will lead to the success of any clearing session. But before that, I need a vision. Funny to prepare for the end by envisioning a future and creating the guidelines by which I can delete so much and release the mental attachment to any of the material (Read: rip up and remove the ‘residue’ of photos and documents to the recycling bin, never to be retrieved or handled again.)
Yeah… so I guess my next step might be to designate which of my identities is now in charge of the Living to Deadline declutter project.
