The Currency of Time
The Week in Selfies: 5/10/21 - 5/16/21
It’s a much too fancy problem.
I am continuing on with the subscription donation project. May is Lupus Awareness Month so I’m keeping the April organization for May. That organization is Lupus LA. This is a great organization suggested by my wonderful friend Kelsey. Kelsey is also great and I highly suggest you check out her TikTok. If you are new here (welcome!) or need a refresher, you can always find more details of the project on my About page. And if you want to be a matching donor, let me know.
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Spring cleaning means you go through a lot of stuff.
I can be pretty ruthless when it comes to getting rid of stuff. Clothes especially. Getting rid of clothes brings me so much joy. I love seeing a huge pile of clothes and shoes that are going out the door, usually being sent to Thred Up. The joke is that I like to get rid of stuff so much because it makes room for me to buy more things. (This is not a joke.)
Especially in the last few years, the time I’ve been living alone, it’s much easier to keep track of what I use and don’t use, what is falling apart, what is not a good storage solution anymore, or just, aesthetically, what isn’t really my vibe anymore. Since the start of the year, I’ve been on a mission to replace some of the less quality items in my apartment with better items. This mission has been stalled a bit but in theory, the hope is I can update things to be higher quality items that last longer.
Being so gleeful about getting rid of stuff is out of necessity more than anything. I live in New York, in a small one bedroom apartment. I can walk outer wall to outer wall in roughly 30 steps (or 10 seconds). So, I don’t have a lot of room for extraneous stuff that I’m not using on, at least, a semi-regular basis.
Sentimental stuff is…a different story. I am a bit of a sentimental fool which, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for any amount of time, this is not a surprise. I am who I am. But, as a sentimental fool, there are some things I have a much harder time getting rid of. There’s decor I’ve been gifted or made. There’s a whole stack of posters from my grad school (*drink*) thesis play. There’s various forms of correspondence.
The sentimental stuff can really slow you down because every time you look and interact with it, it means something different. Sentimental stuff has a different currency than “useful” or “practical” stuff; its value changes depending on people, circumstances, and time.
I keep a box of old postcards, cards, and letters and I have for a long time. Okay, multiple boxes. It used to be that you couldn’t convince me to throw away any card or letter. Every single one, regardless of content, went in the box. But, purging has had to happen over the years. Any time I move, I always take time to go through stuff. I try to turn off my sentimentality and say good-bye to anything that doesn’t serve me.
This year, I decided to go through those cards, letters, and postcards once again. Now, let me say, it feels really awful to me to get rid of those kinds of things. Sending and receiving mail is much less common than it once was and I really treasure when something shows up in my mailbox. But, some of it just doesn’t make sense to keep. And some of it has a very different value than when I first received it.
Going through the box, I stumbled on a pretty simple birthday card. It was signed, “Love” and a couple of names. No extra message or anything. It seemed like the perfect candidate to get rid of. Then I realized that everyone who had signed that card is dead, this is now an artifact, and I wasn’t going to bury them a second time. The movement of time turned something so simple into one of the most meaningful and complex items I now have in my possession.
Likewise, some items had the opposite effect. Some were items that were so innocuous I could barely remember the context. Some I just didn’t need to keep. Some items I took out of the box, read the name, and wanted to throw them across the room; I couldn’t bear to keep them. (I recycled them instead.) The dissolution of relationships, the growing and the learning and the work that went into that growing and learning completely changed the weight of the items in my hand.
We talk about time all the time. We talk about how it moves too fast or two slow, how it can be cruel and unkind. We talk about when we really want to cherish it and remember it. We talk about how it is a flat circle. (Well, I do. Every week in therapy.) The currency of time is always changing which means the value of everything is always fluctuating.
This is how I look at it: some things we hold on to (physical items, memories, relationships) are like beanie babies. They’re adorable and fun to throw around, you spend too much time collecting them, we’re told they are going to be really valuable someday and then they bust. Some things are like baseball cards or coins. You spend a lot of time collecting them because it’s fun and yes, they might have a greater value someday but you know that fluctuates and you are willing to wait and see what happens. No matter what, you’ve got some cool things to look at. Some things had barely any value from the start. Like pennies. What is the point of a penny? And some things don’t fit the metaphor at all. They are important. It doesn’t matter if they have value in any other context because they will always have value to you.
After this clean, I’m really hoping I don’t regret getting rid of some of those beanie babies.
Monday, May 10, 2021
The picture of health.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Thumbs up.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
The shortest way from Point A to Point…Wine.
Thursday, May 13, 2021
Oh my god, did the rapture happen???
Friday, May 14, 2021
Saturday, May15, 2021
Is it really baking if you aren’t covered in flour by the end?
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Two weeks from the second vaccination. I was thanking science and feeling grateful.
That is, in fact, the end of the selfies. But DON’T WORRY, this newsletter is not going anywhere. (I know you were worried so. so. much.) I’ll have a wrap-wrap-wrap up on the selfies and a what’s next, next week.
This week, paying subscribers joined me on a meandering metaphor about a fire bike. If that sounds intriguing to you, consider becoming a paid subscriber.