Of time and junk
It is mid-October, where have August and September gone? The months and years are speeding by so fast, I can’t keep track of time. Suddenly it is Thursday again and I have to submit a column.
When I was a young girl, time seemed to drag on very heavy feet. A week in school as a boarder was an eternity. Christmas took forever to come, and summer vacation, which always came too late, ended too soon.
It took so long for the really fun occasions to arrive. But now, in my senior years, just when I wish time would slow down while I attempt to write my memoirs, read my books and smell the flowers, each day seems to be flying at warp-speed. Suddenly, an entire week has passed with very little done.
But there is so much to do. So much junk I have to get rid of before time runs out on me.
I have always been a pack-rat. But at my age, I truly need to de-clutter. I have to think of what I want to leave behind, and what I need to throw away so my junk doesn’t become a burden on my descendants. At night, before I go to sleep, my mind wanders, trying to figure out what junk must be kept and what has to go. Often it renders me sleepless.
I need to empty my attic. I no longer remember what I’ve stored in that mysterious space above my bedroom. There are boxes there I haven’t opened since we moved in over 18 years ago. Surely, they can be thrown away. But I know what will happen when I open the boxes and the memories therein escape into my reverie.
My closet is full of shoeboxes of pictures from the past when photographs came in 4X5 prints. I’ve been meaning to scan them to preserve their memories and save on space. But every time I begin to work on them, each photo reminds me of something or someone and I begin to daydream.
I have files of stuff I’ve written over the decades — drafts of stories already published, notes for lectures long delivered, pathetic attempts at poetry, speeches from a past life. They are actually worthless, but I seem to be attached to the times in my life when they were composed and published.
There are also letters that tell family stories and secrets shared with my sisters, and intense missives — personal and political, from another time and place. I have kept all these because I have this vague idea to write the story of my life. But with time passing so fast, when will I have the time? I must tell my daughter to just burn them, if I haven’t done so yet, when I pass away.
I have given my martial law and EDSA memorabilia to the Aquino Library in Tarlac. I have stashed some of my writing files in the ALIWW library at the Ateneo de Manila University. I have given away trunksful of books. Another big plastic box of books is looking for a recipient. But my shelves are still full of tomes I haven’t read and will probably never get to read, given my terrible time management skills. Yet, I continue to accumulate them because I like the feel of a book in my hands, the scent of printer’s ink on paper, and the idea that I will read it sometime.
I have dozens of CDs but no working CD player, lots of DVDs but no working DVD player. I am told that my IPhone or a smart TV is all I need to listen to music using Apple Music and Spotify, and to watch movies via Netflix. But I still have to get into these new-fangled gadgets. My TV is an old model and all I’ve used my IPhone for are texting, Viber, pictures, and Facebook, which, my grandchildren say is a waste of a fine instrument with so much potential.
Soon it will be Christmas, and time will continue to gallop ahead, leaving me breathless as I try to catch up with its demands. After all, time is finite and I don’t know when my clock will stop running. But I can also roll with time and take my life one day at a time, enjoying what’s left of it, doing what I want to do when I want to do it.
About my junk of decades, dealing with it is a losing battle. It will have to take care of itself.
