My eldest son and I were talking about travel the other day. I think I was bemoaning the fact that I didn’t take a gap year- or, as would have been more helpful personally- a gap decade after high school.

My initial college performance wasn’t what you’d call successful. Mostly it was just needlessly expensive when I could have been working, making money, learning to “adult” and maybe going somewhere besides Colorado.

Instead, I went to the college most of my friends went to, the college I was supposed to go to. We used to joke that we went to this college for our MRS. degree. Hardy har har. And indeed, that was the good that came out of it, along with a small collection of friends that I treasure.

An actual degree, well.. not so much.

And, I drowned most of my “I don’t know what I’m doing here” sorrows by buying… stuff. Really useless stuff, apparently, because I don’t remember what any of it was. I think I got really into those plastic stacking crate things- in emerald green. Then I went into debt (apart from the student loans) and didn’t have enough money to pay the bill on the credit card every month, since all the money I made at my on-campus job went directly to my bill.

 

Which brings me to a nugget of truthiness- people who can’t afford the $25 minimum charge should probably not have a credit card. Crazy, right?

Anyway, I had a moment of clarity the year after I dropped out, and it was this: I could find the cats in my apartment more successfully if I’d get rid of some of my junk.

I had awoken one night to scuffling and an odd chirping sound coming from the storage area of my apartment. I lived in the attic, and there was a door in the wall of my bedroom area that you could open and store things in. It wasn’t quite finished. I lived in fear that one of the cats would fall into the wall and we’d have to break open the drywall in the apartment below.

The scuffling? The cats, vying for position. The chirping? A little brown bat, which appeared to be fuzz with teeth.

I grabbed the nearest piece of fabric- an old sweater. I threw it over the bat and shooed the cats away. I gingerly picked up the sweater and flying teeth creature and carried them swiftly outside to the sheltered doorway of our laundry room on the back of the house.

Then I went to bed and laid there thinking about why there was a box of old school papers, broken toaster oven and sweater in my closet. Then I thought of all the other boxes, and couldn’t bring to mind what was in them. Then I started thinking about how my student loans were due, and how I needed another job. Then it was time to get up and go to the job I already had. It had been a bad night.

At work that day, I began thinking about what a waste my schooling had been. I’d gone into it with a plan, but after sampling classes from that plan, realized that maybe my plan was a little more wishful thinking and Dead Poet’s Society and not really based in anything I was good at in real life. Then I thought about what I was good at and realized that I had no idea. Then I started to feel kind of, well, stupid.

What kind of idiot goes to college for something they know- deep down inside- that they aren’t very good at and probably don’t really want to do, I asked myself.

Well, the answer to that is lots of people, but at the time, I felt like it was just me. Just me wandering through life rather than really living it. Just me, spending money I didn’t have for something I clearly didn’t want- something even more useless than those stupid crates had turned out to be. Then I got angry, and because rent was due, along with the student loan payment, and they really couldn’t be put off unless I wanted to live in my 1981 Volvo for awhile- I took it out on my stuff.

That weekend, I started clearing out what had become the cat’s obstacle course in my storage closet, and most of it turned out to be exactly like the first box. Old, broken junk. That which wasn’t broken went to the Salvation Army. Suddenly I could find things and knew what I had.

This didn’t fix things, but it was the start of something.

It was okay- and is okay- to let go of things I’m never going to use and to, you know, never buy them to begin with. I started playing with my cats more than just looking for them in the walls. I was suddenly able to put gas in my car and buy food regularly.

As for the bat, she went to wildlife rescue the following morning. I was afraid to ask her fate, but I’m pretty sure she was able to be rehabbed and released- the cats had not gotten to the point of harming her.

These days, I’m still fighting myself when it comes to simplification. I recognize my initial attraction to the idea began from a place of frustration with myself and my ability to become distracted. In retrospect, I needed help that I never got. I have ADHD. I am on the autism spectrum very lightly. All of that had a lot to do with my issues of organization and attachment to inanimate objects. Simplifying was a coping mechanism- a sometimes painful one- that was necessary to move me forward, and it still is.

I ran into a quote the other day that boils my pathway down-

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Yes, yes, yes. At the time, the cats and my financial life were what mattered. Today the list is a little more complicated, five kids being on the top of the list.

These processes are lifelong for some of us, and the problem is, our economy wants it to be difficult, and our lives rarely become less complicated in our middle years. We are gaining responsibilities. And, most of us go through life being purposely distracted by things to buy, our new necessities and I’m not sure how to get out of some of that, except by a constant evaluation of what is important and which parts of our lives we don’t want to be at the mercy of anything.