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1:19 am - 02.17.2009
Little Gifts

Little Gifts

I have a big problem when it comes to my journaling, and until I confront that problem, my journaling is never going to get any better.

"So what's the problem?", you ask?

Well, really, when I think about it, it's the same problem I've always had - I want to "have all my ducks in a row" before I do anything - journaling included - and "having all your ducks in a row" isn't possible in the real world.

Certainly not when it comes to doing anything particularly noteworthy.

I want to have my thoughts and feelings in nice, neat order before I sit down to write, when that's not what a journal is, I don't think - Yes, you can sit down and journal about this thing or that thing that happened - "Dear Diary: This is how my day went...", that sort of thing - and I guess that has a certain value.

But what I think is more meaningful, and more interesting (to me, anyway) is trying to understand; the world you live in, other people, and most of all (in my case), yourself.

But I want to avoid another trap I fall into, which is writing about how I want to write differently in here...without ever quite getting around to "writing differently in here".

So moving on...

This seems insignificant, but something keeps nagging at me to write about it, so clearly it's not - Weeks ago, I was riding my bike somewhere, I forget where, and it struck me that the only clothes I was wearing that I'd paid for were my socks and underwear; my pants had been given to me by Cary a few months previously, and my shirt and tennis shoes were from the giveaway area in the lobby of my apartment building.

If I'd been in a different frame of mind that day, I guess I could have come away with something depressing from that - "Poor, pitiful me - I'm 47 years old, and I'm riding a bike down the street, wearing hand-me-downs..." - but instead, what I took away from it was how often I am "provided for", sometimes in small ways that I don't acknowledge; I'd lost over eighty lbs, didn't really have the money for a new wardrobe, didn't have the money for new shoes (My old ones were worn out), and yet there I was, completely outfitted.

Similarly, months back, I had to retire my desk chair (a hideous pink vinyl chair on rollers I'd taken from the sidewalk years before), when it finally gave up the ghost.

I bought a cheap folding chair from a nearby discount store, but it wasn't really working out; it was too small, and I was continually afraid it was just going to break underneath me at some point.

The giveaway area in the lobby of my building came to my rescue once more - As I write this entry, I'm sitting on a larger, sturdier folding chair that I think will get me through for the foreseeable future (At least until I can afford the office chair of my dreams...).

My dvd player came from Cary, when he bought a new one (I've had it for years; it still works great); my bike, one of my most prized, most important possessions, was Kay's old Univega from the 80s.

My entertainment center, and my mattress, came to me when the building handyman was cleaning out apartments ("You want?", he would ask me).

A good portion of my books and cds are remainders and promo items from my days at Borders.

Most of the T-shirts I own are movie promos from working at ArcLight.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

I don't know if my point is that "God will provide", or "The Universe will provide" or whatever. I don't know if I'm ready to extrapolate, and say that "Because the Universe has provided me with certain things, it will provide me these other things as well".

But it does seem reasonable to acknowledge, at the very least, that I've gotten a lot of free shit over the years.

And I don't know who, or what, to be grateful to...but I'm grateful.

 

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