Decluttering begins with…

…organization.

My current project, because I’m compelled to have several going at once in order to fulfill the prophecy that an Aries never finishes anything (a lie; we do finish most things eventually), started accidentally. There’s a cabinet where most of my journals live, and for some reason, I took out an old journal on Thursday night and was reading it when the email notification for Photo Friday’s theme arrived. Since the theme was “hidden,” and I was reading private details of my past, written in a journal that is kept tucked out of sight with my other journals, it seemed like a timely opportunity to take a photo and use it for the photo challenge. Which of course, you know I did if you saw yesterday’s post.

Problem is, the cabinet is jammed full and it’s hard to find anything or put stuff back when I take it out. Should I cull or simply organize? I think I have to organize first. Hopefully I can then dispose of something without feeling like I’m losing a necessary appendage. And if I record what I’m doing on the blog, three years from now, I won’t tear through everything I own looking for something because I’ll have a photographic record that I PURGED IT.

Just a glance at some of the materials I need to inventory:

I decided to begin with things that aren’t in the journal category or at least not MY journals. Feel free to chime in on the value or lack thereof of keeping some of these items if you’ve had to go through a similar process.

This is my address book that stayed with me for YEARS. Has lots of blank pages so I could add and change pages as needed. Now, of course, I keep my address database on my computer. Is there a reason to keep this? I don’t know.

These, on the other hand, are pages from one of many day planners that enabled me to access key addresses and phone numbers–so that even when I wasn’t home, I could easily snail mail someone a card or package because I had their info with me. Now something like this easily resides on my phone, and also, I’m no longer at a job location many hours a day. Probably sheets like this will be recycled.

This is a tiny address book that belonged to my mother. I have several of these because she moved a lot and updated a lot. Right now, that stuff is in a footlocker waiting for me to take on the task of culling more of my parents’ things. I’ll probably put this there until I’m ready to tackle that larger task. Which is NOT NOW.

Similar to mine, this is my late friend John’s address book. Even though it gives a little history to me related to his life, there’s no compelling reason to keep it. However, he has a LOT of people’s names and numbers in it, so before I make the big decision to let it go, I’ll at least record all those names to mix and match for names in fiction. If you’re a writer, you know the challenge of naming characters. If you’re a writer working on a series of many books, you try not to repeat names for a daunting number of supporting characters. Using names from people John knew can not only help me when I write, it’s a way to include him in the party. He LOVED parties.

Now we get to these two items. Steve R died in 1992 with me as his non-medical caregiver. He’s one of the most important people in my life. I loved him, was loved by him, and he changed the way many of my friends and family members regarded gay people and people with AIDS. It’s very unlikely these are going anywhere.

The one on the left, his 1990 engagement calendar, was used by him to journal his feelings after he lost his partner Don to AIDS. When I read through these, they’re like the beginning of a painful, true story in which I come to know the people of his life (many of whom became part of my life), his emotional struggles, the daily things that occupied him. He wrote and wrote and wrote… Then everything stops abruptly at the beginning of May, and he never wrote in it again. I think I know why. Just prior to that, he was having symptoms that led him to be tested. He was reassured that things looked hopeful for a negative test. He never gives the results, but of course, I know the outcome. He was HIV positive and on the edge of developing full-blown AIDS. I didn’t know him then, but we began working together, and our friendship began, in August of that year. It doesn’t matter at all that his memories of that time aren’t here. They’re written on my heart.

The book on the right is his 1991 engagement calendar. He didn’t use this one to write his feelings as he did in 1990, but it still tells stories. Here are some of them.

That appointment with Bill on the 28th of May? Bill was the therapist he began seeing after Don’s death. He was an incredible man and a huge help to Steve. One of the times Steve’s parents came from Minnesota to visit, Bill gave them a free session so they could ask questions, express concerns, get reassurances. Seeing his name conjures up many discussions I had with Steve and with his parents. Three years after Steve, Bill would die, too, but what a difference he made to the community (you can read more at this link, if you’re interested). There’ve been many heroes in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Bill Scott was one of them.

The day after that, Steve had lunch with Pat and me. I speak of her here most often as Princess Patti. I remember many details of that day–where we shopped in Montrose and Rice Village, the fun we had. Yet I don’t remember where we ate, lol. It was the company that mattered, and it was a magical day.

I don’t know if Steve got food stamps after the interview shown here. I do know how often I took him to Stone Soup, the AIDS food pantry. Later, after Steve died, Stone Soup was one of the places Tom volunteered.

On that last entry, Body Positive and AIDS Mastery were two groups that assisted people with AIDS. Looks like Steve at least planned to become a BP facilitator. I don’t remember if he did. AIDS Mastery was how he met Tim R, who became a friend and great comfort to me (Tim died in 1997), as did Tim’s family. It’s also where Steve met Jeff (who died in 1995), who also became a friend and through whom I met John (the first time I met John was when he came with Jeff to visit Steve in the hospital), and through John, my beloved friend James, who was John’s partner when John died in 1996.

When people are compassionate about my losses, I appreciate it. But so many of the great things in my life, including the books I’ve written and published, friends I’ve made (including my writing partners!), and the quality of the life Tom and I have built together, began with meeting Steve.

After Steve died, we even inherited his cats Maggie and Emily. Tom, allergic to cats, lived with them and loved them until the end of their lives.

This week was busy.  Tom doesn’t remember at all going to see Spyro Gyra with Steve, but Steve seems to have marked through things that were canceled or didn’t happen. I wish Tom could remember it.
ETA: I was just going through my own 1991 Desk Diary, and I, too, noted that Tom and Steve went to see Spyro Gyra. They were at Rockefeller’s. =)

Dr. Duren was Steve’s primary care doctor and was with Geraldine and me at Steve’s bedside when he died in 1992. In August of 2000, Dr. Duren and I ran into each other at an emergency vet. He not only remembered me, he sat down with me and offered comfort and support and talked about Steve and Don to me. Our dog Pete had died only a few days earlier from liver failure, and Tom was on the way from work to join me at the ER vet because we’d gotten bad news about our dog Stevie’s kidney failure.

In that conversation, Dr. Duren told me that he took such good care of Steve not only because of who Steve was, but because he’d promised Don to do so. Every time I remember this sad day when we lost another dog, I send a silent thank-you not only to Dr. Duren, who died unexpectedly only a few months later, but also to Don and Steve.

I’m comfortable with letting someone else get rid of these mementos of Steve after I’m gone. For now, they nourish my heart and my soul.