Same old Same old?

I haven’t managed to open myself up to strangers and their pregnant bellies/babies; I still sometimes feel resentful and angry (though less than I did); I don’t know if I actually want to do IVF again, so not sure what will happen with the donor egg offer; I am stuck on week 7 of the Artist’s Way and have been for several months; I haven’t written regularly in any medium since at least 3 weeks before my exam; my life is still full of ‘busyness’.

I feel like I am treading water, never getting anywhere, never actually changing.

However, I can find some positives if I look hard enough.  I seldom cry at pregnancy announcements these days; my heart doesn’t race anxiously when I think about/speak to/see a particular pregnant friend of mine; I’m not all consumed with each ‘cycle’ and ‘will it be this month?’; maybe I do feel a bit ‘softer’ in general; I’ve ‘let go’ of a lot of (material) things this year, which is a huge step forward for a hoarder such as myself.

The Museum of Me, one of my dear friends calls collecting various documentation of your life. Like the trunkful of letters anyone ever wrote to me.  The teenage scrapbooks and Dolly magazines, pictures of pop stars that lined my bedroom at 17, poems written with so much teenage angst you could power your whole house for a year.  Who else would ever want to look at all this stuff?  For what eventuality am I keeping it?  I think on some level I have been saving articles in the Museum of Me for my as-yet-unborn children.  So that one day they might – what – ?  Think I was a total idiot???  Or was I keeping my ‘old’ self alive, fanning the flames of that old self with long-lost-love-letters? (Which I never even read).

Anyway, the trunk came out a number of times this year, and on each occasion I stripped some more burdens away.  Letting go of pieces of me that no longer fit who I wanted to become, who I have become already.  A few close friends received the bundles of their letters in the post – I decided they could have the opportunity to do with them as they saw fit.  Most read a couple, had a laugh, said “I wouldn’t want my kids reading that!” and threw the lot away.  None of them had kept the pile of letters I had sent them.  Very normal and healthy behaviour, as one approaches forty, I would think.

The letters from old ‘flames’ went into the fire.  I felt no remorse or regret and still don’t.  It helped me examine a few relationships specifically, and the way I engage in relationships generally (hoarding people in the same way I hoard correspondence).  I discovered a toxic relationship or two I was willing to let go.  Freedom.  What I once saw as what? protection? all this ‘padding’, the safety net of evidence that people loved me enough to keep in touch – it was just so much ballast, weighing me down.  Kept me tied to the past, instead of being able to live in the future.  Kept me 17 and heartbroken, 22 and homesick.

Equally, I have also been able to discard quite a lot of clothes (moving on to a new style, letting go of the past again) and even a couple of boxes of books.  Every few months I’ve gone through my cupboards/shelves and discarded more things.  Today was bits of old batik fabric (which I loathe – why on EARTH was I keeping them???) and some tablecloths I never use and never want to.  I freed up a whole plastic storage container.  When I moved house each year (for ten years) I never threw a single thing away.  This year I have thrown out more than I ever did, even when I left home at 17.  It feels great.

So, upon writing this, it does seem like there is some movement forward.  Maybe just not in things that seem measurable to the outside/judgemental eye.  Nothing overtly ‘productive’, perhaps, which is why my internal critic tends to overlook these particular undertakings and exploits as positive changes.  Learning to be gentle with myself is proving to be the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken.  And look how writing helps!