Today's the Big Day

This is the picture from the post I deleted on Sunday. These are things given to me that at the time, I thought I was going to toss them all out. I have a few hours to decide...

...where I throw out reminders of much of the last 25 years of my life. The dumpster will be dropped off today, and we'll fill it with all the remodeling debris as well as a bunch of other stuff that I've decided needs to go in the process.

Someone told me that it will be emotional. As I gather up the last vestiges of stuff that I should have tossed out years ago from the crawl space, yes, I am beginning to cry.

I'm crying because I did the dumpster thing a year ago at my Dad's house, emptying its contents and trying to find some shreds of things that I wanted to keep or my siblings would like to keep. Today will remind me of that.

I'm crying because in terms of possessions, I now have everything that I have ever wanted--all the decorative objects you could imagine, a practically brand-new redecorated (for the most part) house, I don't need to train that much right now, I'm getting some time off this weekend, my back is healing, lawyers in Illinois and Colorado are working diligently on my behalf to get my Dad's Estate closed, I'm apparently not sick, I'm going to Florida in 2 weeks on business (but happy to get into warmer weather regardless), I'm going to pay someone to rake up the rest of the leaves in my yard and cut down the perennials so I can enjoy this weekend, I'm having my new garage door installed next week. On the surface, an entirely new life is coming my way. I should be happy, right?

I'm crying because a relationship that I really wanted to make work, and where I felt for the first time in my life that I was truly in love, has ended. All I wanted was a shred of a sign that the supposed love would have a chance to grow, but all I got was nothing. It still hurts like hell. I'm not done here. I have decided not to throw out the glasses and necklace from NothingMan. They mean something to me.



I am not sure what I am going to do when all of this finishes. Who will I be? Will I still remember myself, the parts of me at least that aren't broken or hurt? Will I think this was all worth it? Do I even know why I decided to do all of this? Or rather, why all of this change was thrust upon me? Even though I generally consider myself fairly adept at handling change, am I going to handle it when it's no longer a work in progress, but it's finished?

The last year has changed me. The last 3 months have changed me even more. Am I going to be able to put a date on the calendar, today perhaps, and mark it as "Sheila V2.0?" What does that program look like?

Did I really need to go through 3 years of sadness, death and extreme change to get here? Is that the only way? Can I go back? Can I be happy again? I mean truly happy! Certainly I've had some bright spots in the last 3 years, but underneath it all has been this current of sadness and destruction. Will I come to life again? Will I recognize myself?

Step 1: Throw everything out that I no longer need.
Step 2: Wake up tomorrow. See how that goes.

That's as much of a plan as I have right now.