A Golden Find

Gold

In an attempt to tidy my living area, I attacked the piles of magazines, mounds of printed copies saved, spiral notebooks, nail implements and polishes, receipts, bills paid and not, prescription info, my pen, and laptop, as well as whatever jewelry project I’d been working on. My living area is a Temperpedic mattress daybed. I suppose this area began to materialize a couple of years ago. At this point, my open area for lying against a pillow and stretching out my legs is only half the width of the day bed.

I have back problems in addition to being bipolar, so I spend many of my waking hours in my living area. It has been out of control clutter for a long time. However, when I needed something I could find it without aggravating my poor back. I agree this may be a lazy way to "office" for writing. My TV is on the wall I face.

Except for the visual activity it causes my eyes (a negative thing; it hurts my eyes and my brain), as clutter tends to do, this has been a workable system for a while. Finally, the visual clutter reached a catastrophic point. My living area was really a mess. I had to make a bigger mess, and tackle it all at once. I did some passing, then tossing, and then the wall of papers fell tumbling down past my body area and on to the floor. There were five piles as I initiated organized piles, before they started falling over, and totally took over the floor space of the room. I have wall-to-wall papers on the floor of my den.

My creative side wonders how the floor would look if decoupaged, and shellacked

I only slipped while walking across about three times so far, and the cats aren't afraid of walking on it, but my dog doesn't want to walk the pile to come close to me. I'm giving myself today to clear it out, and the recycle pick-up is tomorrow—good motivation. If my floor were clear of papers, and I manage to scan well enough to not trash any important papers, I would wake up tomorrow with a huge weight off my shoulders and a better den, and life.

I settled back into my spot when the papers seemed settled on the floor, and looked around at what to throw down next. I had only cleared half the pile at this point, but I'd also managed extra room for my lap cat.

I opened the denim three-ring binder that one of my friends had contributed art to, like you do in high school. I thought I knew what was inside, and I was amazed to find what I discovered. It was Christmas in July. This prospector struck gold..

Three separate chapters of my life during the 1980s had been preserved in original form. Damn, I was a neat cursive writer. I found no misspellings, only a few insertions, and pages and pages of my original journaling, when I experienced life changing situations.


Here are links to these three chapters. I'll probably include them in Bipolar Daydreams, my first book which is going to print with Author House, as soon as I can finish it. I'd appreciate your thoughts and comments.


Chapter One


Chapter Two


Chapter Three


So, I'm not dealing with this semi-dangerous floor with papers situation. Life is a balance. Now I am motivated to write what I wrote. It was really a find of gold only a pack rat could pull off.


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