I spent yesterday's afternoon excavating someone else's garage, clearing it of dust and shared camping supplies, looking through all the miles and years of accumulated junk. it is always strange for me to see heaps and heaps of mess like this one, like the one in my boyfriend's closet, like those all through his home, because I am not the kind of person prone to accumulating anything, whether junky or worthwhile. I think instead I have an anti-accumulation tendency. a disposal compulsion. I often have to remind myself that certain things should not be gotten rid of. if I didn't, I would just clear everything out. everything that served no purpose or function for me, that I had no deeply good reason for keeping, that did not have a practical use. I think it's a compensatory measure for my grand and overzealous sentimentality. anything worth remembering is cataloged internally and hanging onto artifacts (which I'd happily just call detritus) is not sensible to me. also, it's sort of infuriating to me. also, suspicion-making. maybe some of it is just the fact that I've moved thirteen times (four times cross-country) in the last five years, and that kind of nomadry doesn't leave room for much accumulation. and consequently, has not left much room for tolerance of it either. I don't mind it either, I like being light on my feet and light on the boxes. ready to go and adapt and resettle.
I think about this when I help my boyfriend clean his apartment or take things to his storage space. yesterday when we were cleaning, something struck me very strangely about all of his boxes of old zines and newspaper articles and who-even-knows-what. something about how much room all of his accumulated stuff takes up, and how it all seemed a metaphor for how much room was available in his life in general. room for me, for change, for ever leaving the apartment where he's lived for this absurd length of time, for things that aren't just his. (and, really, if I'm frank: room for the desire and the interest and the just-good-sense to move in with me.)
the available room for all of this seems almost laughably negligible, and by this point I've stopped getting irked about it. can you really blame someone for being frightened? for not knowing what to do? for only just now (when he's thirty years old) having an actual relationship? I want to be generous and say no, there's no blame, it all takes time and you should have your time and ease into whatever's uneasing you, maybe someday you'll come around, and really, of course there's no rush. but I can't say that for long, if I'm honest about it.
where he sees no need to rush I see no need to hesitate. a year and a half and I haven't changed my inclinations slightly. but if time wears on like this I'm going to.
I can keep an unperturbed front a few more months, maybe, but I don't think I can stand much more. I can give it until winter, then I'm gone.
if this lack of room for me doesn't change by then, I swear I think my heart will be gone already.