Category Archives: insomnia

loss

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Loss is an inevitable part of life. Unfortunately, it’s usually a sad part.

The other night I had dreams of loss. When I write them down, they sound rather silly: in the dreams I lost a backpack, some shoes, and my airplane ticket. I also couldn’t remember which airport I needed to go to and missed the flight. I cried a lot. I was scared and felt untethered.

I’m sure that there is deep significance behind the dream, and when I woke up I was very sad and felt like I was missing something important.

We usually first learn about loss when we are kids. Our pet goldfish, dog, or cat dies. Perhaps a close friend moves away or school yard politics separates us from our social group. As we get older, loss takes a different tone. A close grandparent dies, we experience love and subsequent heartbreak.
Eventually, a parent dies. Then as we get older, friends start to go.

I’ve heard from older people that it’s not that you get used to it, that at some point you accept that loss is inexorably entwined with the act of living.
The trick is to learn how to acknowledge it and keep moving forward.

flying

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One of the things I loved about flying in airplanes when I was a kid were the clouds.
I would press my face to the window and dream.

In my child-world there were fairies who danced on the clouds. This was their home.
I could climb out of the window and frolic on the white puffs with them. The clouds easily supported our miniscule weight and we could clamber around the cumulus towers and play hide-and-seek in the billows.

Somewhere along the line I lost touch with my fairies.
I also stopped enjoying flying on airplanes.
I am not sure if my loss of the fairies and my dislike of flying coincided, but I would hazard a guess that they were. Perhaps I need my friends in the clouds.

For the past few years, I’ve been taking night flights. This last time I took a trip on an airplane, the flight left mid-afternoon. I was able to press my face to the window.
I wondered if my fairy friends were frolicking in the clouds far away.

I imagined that they were having a merry time out there.

It was a lovely flight.

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stuff

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As I wade through the boxes I have in storage, I wonder why I keep all this stuff. I have too much stuff. When I was 19 I drove across country to start a new life with only as much stuff as would fit into my little Honda Civic hatchback. With room to spare.

When I think about how much stuff I have, I can not help but conjure up the image of the Junk Lady from the movie “Labyrinth” who carries her house and all her stuff on her back. She is bent over and wizened from the burden.

But…but… I need all my stuff! It’s important!

I have archaic technology taking up boxes, clothes I haven’t seen since 2002, newspaper article clippings, and a usb mouse I never used.

That stuff I can consolidate and give or throw away.

I also have boxes of my dad’s stuff. His old photo albums, writings, sketch books full of his doodles, letters he wrote to various friends and family…. How long do I keep that stuff? Forever? He is gone, but his stuff lives on in perpetuity? For what purpose?

At what point does stuff become a burden? I have a friend who purges every year. Okay, that’s her closet, but at least it’s something. I know we are supposed to keep tax forms for a multitude of years, but those old VHS tapes? How often are those boxed up items really used? If they haven’t been touched in a year, how important are they really?