I'm trying to sew some slippers today, for The Pink Slipper Project, because working on the house has kept me from it for too long. I've been getting frustrated, because I just don't have the table space to comfortably work with fabric. One of my tables currently has a large hedgehog enclosure on it, true, but the rest is just...crap.
I've dreamed for years of being able to empty my storage unit and have all of my possessions actually within my possession, but now that I have them none of them seem to be relevant any longer. Things that I was keeping for an apartment/home that I never got to have. Things that I've just plain outgrown, because they were packed away when I was in my early 20s and I'm now in my mid-30s. I spent my 20s either homeless or in a single room, so all of these things were put away with dreams of Someday. Now, Someday is here--sort of--but none of this is of any use to me.
I've been spending the last couple of weeks drudging through the original Dragonlance: Chronicles books. I still tear up about Sturm and Flint (even though I've read the series several times), but in general I didn't actually enjoy them. I had to work to get through them. I'm reading the Legends trilogy now, and...I kinda hate it. The writing is bad and the character portrayals are juvenile and naive. I love the Lost Chronicles, the War of Souls, the Dark Disciple. Love them. But the early stuff? The stuff not even written by Weis and Hickman? I'm tempted to use it for bedding for my rat.
The thing is, I have a lot of Dragonlance books. Forgotten Realms (mostly Drizzt, which I've already stated I think are crap). Conan. Star Trek novelizations, both the original series and TNG. Dozens of others. Dozens and dozens of books all told--so many I don't even know the number--and now I wonder how many of them I actually want to keep? All of these things that I've been paying to store for years, that were cherished in memory, now just taking up space, gathering dust and cat hair because I've outgrown them.
Also all of these art supplies. All the paints and pastels and canvases and paper and sketchbooks. The writing materials--the notes and manuscripts and piles of paper and drawers of pens. I haven't used any of this in any serious way in at least four years.
Do I just pack all of this up again? Throw it away? I've always thought these things were involved with who I am. Now it seems like it was all an important part of who I was but not who I am. If I jettison all of this, will I be able to let go of the "was" and figure out the "am" and the "will be"?
Beth had a lot of potential, but she was incredibly, tremendously, fatally flawed. Liz burned away the dross, discovered and tempered the steel. If Elizabeth no longer needs the things from her past, then the compassion, wisdom, and gratitude she's discovered are more than fair compensation.
....
Well that was pretty convoluted. Welcome to my brain, folks.