a poem I read today

 This is a convoluted and complicated poem; it speaks to me of codependency and of the borderline/narcissist/cluster B personality disorder 'idealize/devalue/discard' cycle. The tendency to go from one 'perfect' friend/lover/job/friends group to the next to the next to the next, leaving destruction in ones wake. Rather than deepen the connection, allow vulnerability and hurt and healing, cut and run as soon as things start to be real and hurt, blaming all the feelings that come up on the 'other, and on to the next 'perfect' one'. True intimacy involves both a commitment to be as safe as possible for the other, but also opening your heart to the inevitable bumps and bruises and misunderstandings that come when you let a person into your heart and trust them with even the worst parts of yourself. You want to be their safe place, they should want to be your safe place too.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwZ_GpDu5nr/

clutter, hoarding, memory, trauma, bla bla bla.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1MPmbD4JJU

I do not have a great deal of organic memory; I don't generally remember my childhood, I don't remember vast quantities of my past. A lot of the objects in my home I can look at or hold and say "Oh, yeah, this was from my dorm room in college, " and a few slivers of memory will come back. I am 53 now and I know that most of my life wasn't important or meaningful to anyone but me, and when I die it will be gone, and none of the objects will be meaningful for anyone and will be a burden of clutter for someone to have to sort through and get rid of. and yet I still can't get rid of it. I kept journals too....which I don't even care to look at or read ...but can't force myself to trash. I hate being like this and I know I don't matter*....but I still can't effing clean up. [posted in FB yesterday, still thinking about it]

* re: "I don't matter" - I guess I've been trying to think of myself and my life in terms of 'legacy' more lately...my dad left....just stuff. his mom also left...just stuff (Great Depression survivor, she was a serious hoarder. I think my dad mostly got too sick to keep things like mail and dry cleaning  under control, and was also buying into prepper /doomsday stuff there towards the end.)  My dad's dad left art. Which I think mostly is ruined now from sitting in various houses, buildings, sheds, with heat and wet and whatever. He did paint a mural on a big post office in Oklahoma City at one point. I don't know if it's still there, or if there's even a record of it. Kind of a 'Frederik Remington' style cowboys and indians scene.  Anyway.... my mother is leaving more of what I'd consider 'legacy' - she has written a lot of plays, had them performed here and there when she was teaching and involved with various schools and libraries. She has also created lot of art  kind of folk art 'altars' encapsulating various people and experiences.  

A lot of people consider their children and grandchildren to be their 'legacy'....I don't have that. My legacy is an absence - choosing not to have kids is ending 3 or more generations of alcoholism, suicide, depression, and dysfunction & whatever underlying personality disorders caused or arose from said behaviors/addictions/biochemical imbalances.

Anyhoo....things to consider. Stuff as an anchor for memory which is otherwise unfindable, and who does it matter to whether or not I remember any of it? Who will it matter to when I'm gone? Why should I care?