possessed

i awoke to see this on my computer. it's a documentary by martin hampton about people who hoard--"people who's lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions." ow. was mike sending a message? this strikes close to home. speaking of which, our landlord is selling the property we are living on, and for the past week or so since i found out, i have been obsessively searching for new options, new places to live, either to rent or possibly to buy.

the need to do something has resulted in me not doing much else--no knitting, little art. what does this have to do with this video i found this morning? well, a co-worker of mike's is moving out of the country, and leaving her lovely flat with hardwood floors and a garage, very similar to ours, but is within bike distance of mike's work. after some obsessive searching, i have prepared myself for the big changes that would come with moving. the only problem is that the flat is about 20% smaller than our current place which is already overflowing with "stuff." i have a hard time imagining how we would squeeze ourselves and two cats and all of our "stuff", mostly my "stuff" that would need to be pared down into this place or many of the one bedrooms out there which will already be adding an additional $300 or so to our rent. (i've been living in the current place for 3-4 years, and rent was a bargain when i moved in. our awesome landlord has never raised it.)

i managed to get rid of a good bit of stuff when i moved from san francisco, then again when i moved from orange county, yet in the time i've lived in this one bedroom which was spacious when i moved in, to now, i have amassed so much stuff (including a boyfriend and cat) that we have spilled over into a storage facility. granted some of the stuff includes sizable art pieces. i don't blame the boyfriend or the cat. it's all my own sad undoing. minor purgings make minor dents, and i realize that there are definitely off things about my personality that do not lend itself to minimalist living not to mention normal living. i'm not quite to the degree that the people in the documentary are. sure, i have hair, fingernails and other body "bits" in jars in the bathroom, but really those are for possible future art projects. i sure hope this art thing is not just a manifestation of mental illness. i really don't like the portrayals of artists in the movies as "crazy." and it's not that i aspire to be normal, whatever that means. i'm just trying to get by, but it's not easy being me.

the scary thing is that to some extent i possess and am possessed by many of the characteristics exemplified by the hoarders. i find emotional attachments to things which make it difficult to get rid of them. further exacerbating this are my tendencies towards obsession. watching the first man organizing his videos, i thought about my spreadsheet of yarn stash. oi. when i start something new, i throw myself with zeal into it. my place is littered with the relics of unfinished pursuals of new outlets for so-called creative expression. jewelry, ceramics, woodworking. i try to stop one thing, and rather than stopped, my attention is merely diverted. i can't get rid of all these art supplies that i have sunk so much money into. it's not just the money, but the feeling that i failed because i gave up.

what i really need to do is find some way to fuel this into or provide fodder for an art piece. kill two birds with one stone. for now, i will plan on having a garage sale.