Day 5 - 157 -- Still Beginning

Another day filled with sorting through the remnants of parts of a career. This is difficult, though I try to breathe and dive into the fray. There is a need to pause briefly to try to digest the process -- and to stand up and move around to keep from getting repetitive motion backlashes. I spoke to a colleague at the end of the day whom I told I'd only gotten through half of a file cabinet drawer today. I'd hoped to get the last of that cabinet completed today, but things took longer to deal with in this drawer. She paused and looked at me with a bit of a smile and told me that I'd filled two big bags today and six over the 5 days since I began. So, I've done a lot and should focus on that positive. She must be a glass half full person and today I definitely was not that. <smile>

I haven't done much in the evenings since beginning this culling process. I think I've been trying to let myself rest. Today, I went for a good hike up the hill and joined friends for supper. That was delightful -- a great break but one with people. I realized that the sorting through papers has been isolating. There's no interaction during that time. There can't be. It is something I have to do by myself. Work has been a place where I interact with people -- not fully a 'social' outing, but a place to talk with other adults. This cleaning process has taken that aspect of work and hidden it somewhere. No wonder I wander the hallways between batches of files. It helps me stretch and breathe and also I can see other people. Interesting the little things that take time to be noticed. 

As I'd noted with a colleague -- this is just the beginning. That is frightening and exciting at the same time. Learning to expose the meaning behind it all will take time, something that I will need to accommodate and not push it all inside some little box in my head to seal shut and ignore. No small feat. The lyrics of a song perfectly reflect what I pondered through the evening walks. The first verse does this particularly well. The singer has been in the biz for over 60 years. His delivery of this song accentuates the emotions being described. Enjoy! 

Were Do You Start? -- Tony Bennett