Does it matter?

 

Does it really matter what set me off this time? The 1000th plus time of me getting derailed? I was tidying up some business cards in a recipe box in the kitchen. Yes, I even hoard those stupid things. So out of date, most of them. But for some sentimental, event-associated reason I keep them. Like I don't already have enough reminders of the past.

I made it a point to throw away old insurance cards. Even though they have Sharon's name on them. I think, "Well, if she were alive, I'd still be throwing them out." They were expired and the policy was cancelled years ago. No pangs with that one, so I ventured into the bedroom.

I wanted to find her old medical cannabis card, to see the picture on it. It is definitely a keeper. Her long hippie hair was in full effect. I remembered the difficulty we had obtaining it at the time. We had to drive to Sacramento and see one of those cheesy doctors. The kind who made it through med school last in their class and were always getting in trouble in their residency for showing up to their rounds high.

It wasn't too much trouble convincing the Rastafarian MD that Sharon, or I for that matter, were deserving patients. As long as we paid the $45 fee for a 6 month license, we were rubber stamped and ready to go. It was just getting her there, walking up the stairs, waiting in the office, having to fill out paperwork, and the usual incontinence worries, and the overheating and vision problems -- just all that, which made it not the fun outing that it could have been.

I think of the person smiling in that photo. That hopeful smile, the one that did such a good job of convincing the world she was a fighter and this MS wasn't going get her down. She must have had fears. Certainly, disappointments registered in her mind as the disease kept wrecking all her hopeful little plans. But goddammit, she was gonna do something if she set her mind to it. And she wanted that card, so she could be "legit."

I kept on cleaning, and I emptied out all the drawers of the bedside vanity bench in our room. I didn't throw much away except trash. I had to tell myself, when getting rid of a few of her hair scrunchies, "She wasn't using these for years. I should have thrown them away when she was still alive. I can do it. I can do it." I was already crying from the card and a million other things that I had to sort out from the drawers. But now it's a million minus three or four.

At this rate, in ten years I will have gone through every item in the house, and who knows if I'll still be clinging to 95% of it. I have been raising my standards of what is something I want to keep or not, but by an infinitesimal amount. Trash is not going to be kept, even for sentimental value. OK, maybe some trash, like ticket stubs or scrapbooking materials. Yeah, I'm gonna say 20 years and still very little progress.

Everything I touch keeps me in memory lane. It's where I want to be anyway, so I guess that's what I'm going to resign myself to. For now.