the less effect | Realisation

I was making dinner a couple days ago when I reached for my trusty salt + pepper grinder combo. It was old, beat to hell, and the lid/cap fell off every time it was picked up. Poor thing had been dropped, knocked over, and otherwise brutalised more times than I could count. I was thinking just earlier, how it’d be nice to replace it. This object had been with me now for almost a decade, and was one of the first things me and my first husband purchased when we got our very first place together. Needless to say, that thing was encumbered. I picked it up, held it above the chicken breasts I was seasoning, gave it a nice twist on the salt side, and snap! it broke right in half; pink salt flew everywhere, on the counter, all over the floor, all over the food, and some even hit me. This thing exploded. Stunned, I looked down at the remnants of the grinder, it had broken right where the grinding head screws on, and that piece had also launched itself with a loud clatter to somewhere else in our tiny kitchen

jesus fuck that was a lot to process in that moment

‘You alright?!’ I hear from across the condo as Jake looks up from writing, glancing in my general direction

Yeah, I was alright. Physically. Kinda pissed off, of course. Now I had no good way to apply salt to my food (we don’t have a regular shaker), and I had a mess to deal with mid food-prep. Aaaaaaaand we have a strict daily schedule and this might make dinner late. Oof, ugh, ugh. On top of that, I’d been having a lot of really heavy™ thoughts about … life, i guess?

I have been considering my path with work, the credit card debt, impending divorce, and general desire to be truly independent. oh, and the mutual objective of moving to Washington with Jake. I have been feeling disenchanted in the realm of work, largely due to my own lack of contribution commitment problem. But also, overall trauma and general headspace a lot of fighting with my ex had got in the way of how i showed up or didn’t at work was being perpetuated by an encumbered environment. Now, before you get all up in arms about environment; my environment with Jake is amazing. It is immensely supportive, kind, caring, and understanding. He gets me.

Now, I’m going to hit you with something we all ‘know’ but don’t really know:

Stuff has baggage, y'all

I'd been avoiding working / existing in the room where my PC and other chattel reside. I'd do work out on the couch, with music on the TV, or do a little bit of drawing with a show I was enjoying. Chores, little details, and distractions diverted my attention from that space and the activities therein. I'd tell myself that I was minimising distraction (games, art, social media, etc, on my comfy computer) by not working in there. silly me, the living room is even more distracting even my music system is in there, not being used and enjoyed like i insisted it be, so i could, enjoy it

I forget what exactly prompted it, but I was considering taking down the dried flowers from when I got married to my second husband. I had hung them to the right and up of my monitor, by the balcony door. They, and almost all of the decor items around my desk (and the rest of the room) are 'cursed merchandise' items taken from the places i shared with my exes That’s right, the grinder was cursed merchandise. fuck. I’d been thinking about it the whole time too, along with the flowers, and some other stuff.

Oh, no went my internal voice. The pieces clicked together and i had the most awful realisation; i had lost sight of the stuff and things that are truly important to me, gave up my own identity and autonomy in very passive and miniscule ways that added up to something monumental, and that i was hauling around shit that i didn’t need or want anymore. Stuff that wasn’t me, wasn’t mine, wasn’t what I wanted or needed today, and often times, stuff I didn’t even decide to get in the first place. stuff that carried a lot of trauma with it, too

It was time to read the book again. The book? yes this is not an ad for the book, i’m not affiliated, i’m talking about my early-life crisis jeez

Behold, the less effect by Samantha Joy. I read it a couple years ago now. It piqued my interest, and so I read it on a whim. It was profound, and I didn’t really … execute it, properly. But the message resounded with me. I’d always thought belongings had a ‘spirit’ to them, as it were. I knew our environment contributes to our mental wellbeing. I knew the friends and people that we keep in our life influence who we are, how we act, what we do. None of that, topically, was new to me. The presentation, however, was. goodness me, Samantha digs into you and your feelings when she addresses these things. She calls out the silly little things we do, that trick ourselves into holding onto shit that we don’t really need or want; ‘what if i’ll need it eventually’, ‘but it’s a gift!’, ‘oh this is from xyz!’, ‘this was when i did xyz’. You get it, certainly. Look around you.

I bet you’re surrounded by things you aren’t fully committed to having, that just fill the space because you don’t have anything else to put there, or you were given them, or you grew up with it, or you just … grabbed it when you broke up with your last partner because it’s ‘yours’ or something. Things that you don’t truly love, with all your heart. They’re not things that you intentionally curated to accompany you on this short life.

Am I right? let me know, i’d love to talk about it with you

Anyway, accosting you aside, dear reader. I read the book again. Compel came over me and I had to. I even told Jake that we would be having book club together on it; it is in our library, and he needs to read it. (He did! It is good. He joined me on this expedition. We’ll talk about that later, though)

Wow. It hit even harder, this time. The realisation of how I’d been avoiding my desk, my office, my computer. The sadness and overall just … misery i was feeling every day. The lack of joy when seeing my décor around the condo. it’s pretty, sure, but it isn’t making me happy The shitty attitude about work, and how I was seriously considering giving up and doing something else!!! Feeling trapped, in my own home, but in such a deep emotional way. The perpetual foggy haze that hung right behind my eyes, devouring my mind and desire and turning me into an apathetic, unenthused, depressed husk of a person.

So I took action and started getting rid of things. Everything.

Join me on this journey while I create my life with intention and care. I‘ve been having a lot of internal dialogue about various things, possessions, my inner quarrels and uncertainties, goals, and a second realisation that the veil has been lifted. over the next little bit, I’m going to be posting about all these things. it’d get really long, if I put it all in one post. and, I need time to type and think and, drive my ass to goodwill in my tiny car stuffed to the brim with things i’m getting rid of

yay!