Endlessly Wound

Mothwings
5 min readJan 8, 2022

Uncertain of the unwritten rules around just how much trash to leave for the garbage folks, questions were asked. In this town the laws are fairly lax when it comes to trash, you pay for as many recycle bins as you need, although only one or two are common, and that gets picked up on Wednesdays. Garbage is free-flowing, no bins required, just bag your stuff and leave it. Is there a limit? uncertain. The answer is actually found rather easily, something that should have been looked into before questions were levied. A bag of a certain size not exceeding a certain weight, unlimited bags beneath that, one bulk item per week. Ideally, were you to place a particularly large item, you would contact them to let them know and get the go-ahead. They will not take electronics.

After discussion, it was agreed in this household that we have a personal limit of four bags, as more seems excessive and we do not want to burden hardworking individuals any more than necessary.

It is somehow a significant factor as to why I enjoy this town. Something about not really worrying about what will and won’t be taken, limits that can’t possibly be met. Having lived in a town nearby wherein the limit was one can each of trash and recycling, and with a family that produced far more than that every week, it was an unnecessary stress that left a sour taste in my mouth whenever the garbage would be packed into the recycling bin and hidden. This is ultimately a pointless thing to feel stressed about as it is likely both bins went into the same truck, to the same facility, and in a landfill somewhere. Lest we get into the argument over our personal responsibility for sustainability vs the companies in charge of polluting the planet to excess, we will move on.

The bags in this house have continued to fill. With exception of one larger 30 gallon bag that contains lightweight materials — old bedding and pillows — the rest are all the 13 gallon bags and are kept under 20lbs for my own sake. No one wants ripped bags. There are currently 2 in the garage and 4 of them sitting downstairs, with another 13 gallon bag on its way to full.

The impact is insignificant, and despite having worked hard for the duration of my day, I feel simultaneously underwhelmed and wound-up. I reached the point where I could not continue to work, and even so I am not wholly exhausted.

After some trust testing with the ballast mentioned yesterday, and realizing that none of the surrounding area was anything other than ‘warm,’ I decided to leave it be and go downstairs to rearrange.

Organization, rather, consolidation, is a skill I seem to come by somewhat naturally. It was honed during my retail work, wherein my store was fairly freely merchandised for my tenure. When someone decided I was fit to be management and I moved stores, I was gifted the worst section possible for stocking and maintaining — Health, Beauty, Care. In a store where the merch we would get in would vary week-by-week, where the idea of a section was a mere suggestion, where just about every item except for the “never-outs” was to be priced by hand, it was a beastly section. Stocking it on my first shift, an overnight, I broke down and cried. Over time, however, HBC became my specialty. I feel certain in stating that if there was a list of Best-Run Terrible Sections company-wide, I would have taken first. At its best, the items would sell from the section with fervor and I could clear 40+ feet of the top shelf to put up the new inventory. Handling the pricing for the section is a task often split by many, but I managed it often by myself. As a treat, I took on stocking something easy like paper or plastic as well.

Although this skill seems to be overridden by comfort and depression in my personal space, it is something I can pull up easily outside of it, including downstairs.

The plan was to maneuver two mattresses and a box spring into the corner of the room where a cabinet and nightstand have been buried by my mess for some time. It was a task to clear out the space to move those pieces of furniture, then another task to get around to where I could push the mass of mattress, and then everything fell together. The floor space has been expanded upon, although not greatly, as my items are placed oddly so that I can continue to access them for further cleaning. It is in flux, in a sense, and will progress to a better way soon. As temperatures increase slightly, work in the garage can commence as well.

Realistically, there are few items to move through at this point. It feels unsatisfying to see an end in sight but without a visual confirmation of the drastic change desired. If it comes down to it, some amount of reorganization of things that are not mine is in the cards. Then again, I want to hear good, comforting news so that I can slow down, or shift into some other project entirely. It is good to use this anxious energy, but no matter what I would do with it, it would be draining. I want to curl up into a ball of blankets and do nothing for a day, but I cannot.

I am tired. I am physically worn down, emotionally worn down, and I am sick of being awake long enough to see the sunrise. It would be far better if this tiredness would be used appropriately as a sleep-aid, but it seems as though it won’t.

My hands are dry and beginning to crack. There was a lot of handling cardboard today, breaking boxes down. Could feel them sucking the moisture right out of my skin. Yet more breaking down needs to occur, and otherwise the sheer amount of cardboard will be weighed out for recycling pickup, much for the same reason we agreed on four bags. Plastics seem to amount for the least amount of trash, and can be rid of this upcoming week. Otherwise it appears the space taken up by garbage can be freed up within the next 3, possibly 4 weeks. Perhaps then it will feel as if something has been done? but perhaps not.

One of the nice things to come of this was realizing that I had purchased wire shelving in the past of 14" deep and 2' long. Planning out space in my room for my critters, one idea was to move the 18" deep, 4' long, heavy-duty unit to the exterior wall, place a corner piece of 27" wide/long next to it, and put a 2' unit leading from that to my bed. It removes most of the potential for a TV, but offers marginally more space than splitting things between a 4' and 3' unit. This will require more thought, however. It was otherwise good to make a move of larger furniture pieces that has been bothering me for some time, separating my mess from the rest more completely. Then I can stay away from breaking a vase here or there, as I did earlier. Perhaps my consolidation skills are not as good as I think, but then again it was never really candle/frame day unless something broke.

I finally feel mentally exhausted enough to try for sleep. This has helped.

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Mothwings

Someone told me I was a good writer. I'm not, so this is a blog. Tend to one’s own flame, and do not extinguish the flames of others.