I clean an elderly gentleman’s home whom I admire for his simplicity. His house is orderly; not overly austere but not cluttered either, and I noted today that he owns 8 shirts, 3 pair of shorts, one long pair of pants and two pairs of shoes. Lest you think I snoop in his closets while he is away—nope—I do his laundry, fold and put away his clothes and towels. When I compare my closet to his it almost becomes a metaphor of the living conditions of life. The more you possess, the more it seems to weigh you down. On the other hand, the more we lose of what we possess—things and stuff, health, money, status, time—the more it also seems to weigh us down. A conundrum for sure.
I am on a mission to seek beyond where I have been. Would my life become that much simpler if I got rid of everything in my closet but 8 blouses, 3 pair of shorts, a pair of slacks and (God forbid!) only two pair of shoes? What is the essence of moving into a later stage of life without the weight (and fear) of the world; slipping more easily down the passage of time; dare I say—satisfied? It defies me.
I underwent a recent health scare where the jury has not yet returned my verdict. I teeter on the verge of an uneasy panic and a dive into the nether world of subconscious thoughts as I try and cope to manage my thoughts and feelings about something I know nothing about. I have been oblivious to good health; after all, it’s always been something that was just there until one recent day when maybe it isn’t any longer. I feel I faced death and found myself sadly lacking; found myself not ready in the least. Too much of my struggle to become a new me is yet undone—hell, 80% of it is probably undone.
My life in the past four, harrowing years hasn’t been at all what I wanted or pictured it at this stage of the game. I am on a quest to come to terms with that. To continue to live I need to do that. Then maybe I will be free to move on and live better and longer. It’s all about finding the key that lets one be happy with a closet mostly empty don’t you think?
