Final Countdown...

Suggested soundtrack: "Here we go" by Jon Brion



Well, last night was my last night at work, and now I sit unemployed on the front porch of my house, running a largely unsuccessful yard sale on an hour and a half of sleep. Most of the shit I'm taking with me is all packed, and the only issue now is the shit I'm not taking with me. It amounts to quite a lot of shit. Hopefully I can get a bit more cash for all of this crap so I don't have to trash it all or give it to needy children. It's wild to go through everything I've accumulated over the years and decide what makes the cut. Last night I found a box containing what appeared to be every goddamn piece of schoolwork I'd done since age 6. Crayon drawings of dinosaurs eating schoolbuses, collages, pages and pages of that triple-lined brown paper we all had to use to practice our printing. Cute, but now it's compost. For some reason I had also kept all of my notes and essays from senior year until college graduation. With a few exceptions, those went away too. What in the hell had possessed me? Did I think that someday down the line I'd actually want to relive my education? I don't even remember 1/100th of what I had in those pages. I'm not a terribly sentimental person, so why all the clutter?
The whole process is therapeutic. When I'm done, everything I own will fit into my small car. That, to me, is almost magical. Unemployment, minimal possessions, a tank full of gas: that is freedom. The crazy thing is, I don't actually have to go to Dallas. It is a wise decision, sure. But if on the day of my departure, I just decided to go north, or south, who would be there to tell me no? All of the possibilities...
In a side note, I'm currently rereading "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. I've read the book probably four times, and at this point I'm not reading for plot (of course) but just to spend time with characters that are like old friends to me. I've been doing a lot of reminiscing lately, doing things I did a lot of, you know, "one last time" and all that. In-n-out burger, bronx pizza, the zoo. I think I'm clinging to the familiar in the face of all this uncertainty. It makes sense to me, at least.
Until next time...