Yesterday, I came home from a long morning of cycling and dumped my gear into this little area of my garage, as I always do. Went inside the house, showered, changed, went about the day. Came out a while later, saw the clutter I’d left and determined that it was time to try and modify my behavior by making it easier to stash bike things as I’m finished with them rather than just unloading everything into a heap. Keep my garage nice, you know.
I thought maybe I could create spaces for individual items; helmets, gloves, jackets and layers, powerbars and other stuff.. “I’ll have a place for everything and I’ll just put it in its place after I’ve used it.” I decided to start this project by gathering ALL the riding gear in order to sort it into categories and then make individual spaces for all the individual things. This is when I realized that the iceberg had calved.
Gentle reader, these are just the cycling gloves. Uh-oh. When did I decide I needed this many? 3 pairs of black Fox mesh backed gloves? (And I don't wear gloves at all if the weather is willing)
With gloves on my brain, I walked over and got the tub of regular work gloves. You
have got to be kidding me. (And there’s more in my shed with the lawn tools)
This is a transformative moment. Something has just fired in my pea-brain and I’m taking a look at this pile and sort of glancing around the garage and realizing that gloves are a microcosm. I’d better go in the kitchen and grab coffee and think this out. Walking through my house to the kitchen I’m acutely aware that I’ve got multiples of many many things. Camping and backpacking. Shoes. Bikes. Kitchen tools. Tools, and more tools. Parts. Electrical parts, computer parts, stereo parts and speakers. Bike parts, car parts for cars I no longer own. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been aware that I have a fairly comprehensive amount of stuff. But I’ve always taken some measure of pride that I keep my house clean and neat, everything is put away, and I can usually find anything I need quickly. “This isn’t hoarding. At worst it’s collecting” - at least in my mind.
(Inspired by jyl's thread on mini-tool boxes I dragged these from the catacombs. These are tools I used to use as a lithographer in a previous life. I don't use them, they are as they were. Have I made them into a shrine? The dark brown box has a picture of the contents so I can tetris the contents in at the end of the shift. So much wrong here.)
Well, guys and gals, a quick look at the googledeegoo shows me that there is indeed a subspecies of the hoarder known as the organized hoarder. This creature can never get rid of the things that they see as valuable, and conversely sees value in the most mundane of things. A length of twine. A scrap of steel. A cable from a computer that was obsolete in 1992. That big stack of numbers from when you used to be a semi-competitive runner.
I have all that and more, and if you ask me where it is, I’ll find it and hand it to you and three other iterations of the same thing.
The bottom line is this. I have a pretty good life, but I really need to have some sort of reckoning. One of the overarching thoughts is, as I’m a lone wolf at this stage in my life, what sort of burden would I be placing on the shoulders of a friend if something should happen.
Who what where why and when. I have a lot of decisions to make as I open drawers and closets and cupboards.
Wish me luck.
