compartmentalize

My whole life fits in the back of my car.


There's a sense of satisfaction in this. I have been packing and repacking, then repacking again, and doing "one final pack...I swear! the last one!" for over a year now. With each relocation I perform this ritual of readying myself for departure both physically and mentally (with much greater emphasis on the latter) for the moving on and looking forward, the new spaces to mold myself to and new people to meld with. I've left so many things all over this land.

Schlepping all my goodies to the airport, and having already dumped a few in the hands of that glorious mail system our nation has, I glare at uniform ladies behind the luggage scale as they tell me I will owe them an extra fee.

"I move a lot. How is someone supposed to move from one side of the country to another on an airline without an extra fee??" I often mutter, wishing I had only an overnight pack and sleeping bag stuffed into carry-on and was going on some exciting excursion with someone I love.

But now, the satisfaction of having all of my material possessions crammed into the back of my jeep like a jigsaw puzzle assembled 'just-so' sets my mind at ease. Extra fees no more!! And while I haven't actually placed all of my things in the literal space, I envision it fitting. Like a glove. My capacity for spatial awareness is surprisingly good...I'll chalk it up to my visual learning style...


In recent past this dividing of things into separate containers has come in handy when organizing the levels of my life. As in, "sure. I could freak out that I don't know what's happening next (a week from now) but instead I'm going to put that in its storage container riiiiiight here! and focus on what I do know about today." I find administrators are successful at this game. Both in the workplace and in their own meticulous personal lives. Perhaps this is the essence of a 'multi-tasker'...being able to shut out this one-thing right-now in order to get these two other more urgent things done. And while I've boasted of my multi-tasking skills in cover letters past, I'm pretty sure I've managed to take them to a whole new level as of late....the administrator level!! ooooo....aaaaahhh....

And in the meantime I've noticed I probably used to be a forecasting-the-future emotional wreck.


While diving head first into yet another arduous job search and ridin' with style on the couches of others, I'm working like the devil to compartmentalize each day...put each development (or NON-development) into its little plastic container on the tall and accommodating shelf of my brain to make room for others more pressing, more key.

But today each little thing fell off of its shelf, climbed out of its neat little box and began traipsing around the interior spaces of my brain. In a haze I blundered about trying to accomplish my 'to-do's'....for naught. I was lost the hurricane of my thoughts. Directions. Desires. dare I say Goals.

I felt like my grown self lying on the floor with four children pulling at my limbs...
Immobilized. (does this make any sense?!)

But I digress. The feat of the week is that my whole life fits inside an automobile. I have my car to hold all my earthly things and get me "there". When its time I just load up, fit each thing into its place...its own compartment...and head out into the sunset.

The only question is where to go...