Skip to main content

Life's Baggage

One thing I have to do this month is copy all of my photo archives from 2021 to Dropbox and memory sticks before erasing them from the computer. I've made this a practice every January because I take hundreds if not thousands of photos every year, and I can't store them all on my hard drive anymore without seriously slowing down the system.

I'm not a great photographer, but I do like looking back at and reusing old pics. What you're seeing in this post are some that I took in January of 2014. Keeping the old ones on Dropbox allows me to access them as easily as if they were still on my hard drive.

My photo archive turned 15 years old this month, and I realized many of the pics are becoming question marks for me. Not this sunset, however. I remember the walk my guy and I took when I snapped it; the weather was biting cold and my hands were numb. Although no one knew it outside my family I was going blind and needed eye surgery, aka my worst nightmare. Publishing had also just kicked me to the curb, so I took a lot of walks in 2014, bracing myself to face the knife, and trying to figure out what should be my next step with my writing if I could still see afterward. Happily the surgery would restore my vision, and I chose the right direction to go as a freelancer.

I still do the same things, too. Here is a pic I snapped of the same spot nine years later.

So what happens to our baggage after we're gone? I doubt my family will even look through this archive before deleting it (I'd love to be wrong, but let's be practical. All of my archives are nothing but question marks to them.) I'm not important enough as a writer for anyone outside my family to take any interest. Maybe after I die my life's work -- which after 25 years of professional writing has grown pretty hefty -- will become wildly popular, but I seriously doubt that.

It sounds a bit depressing, but I'm actually fine with everything gradually disappearing with me. I feel like while I was here I did not waste my time or my talent. I lived my dream, and try as they did, no one could ever take that away from me. That is more than enough.

Comments

nightsmusic said…
I need to put a box together with important papers and instructions in it and let the girls know where it is. Just in case.

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...