brigid | Hello, hello

Originally published at brigidkeely.com/wordpress. You can comment here or there.

I am a hoarder.

I hoard things.

I think this is primarily for two reasons:
1) my parents both hoard stuff, in response to THEIR parents’ actions and their early lives
2) I’ve lost a lot of things to floods and one fire

What this means is that I’ve hauled a lot of CRAP around with me as I’ve moved from apartment to apartment. I mean, seriously. Notes from high school anatomy class? Who needs that when you’re 30? I’ve been purging a lot of stuff, jettisoning more with each move, paring down my life. Yesterday I emptied out 3 boxes, sorting their contents. I threw out a lot of stuff, started assembling a box of cool stuff to send to a friend of mine, and packed up some shelves and hooks that will be installed in a building Nesko’s family owns.

I also threw out a huge amount of correspondence from 1997 - 1999. I used to be a huge letter writer, and I knew a lot of people online. We’d send letters and doodles and photos back and forth, and it was very cool. But the vast majority of those letters? I have no reason to hang on to them. I threw most of them out. The only ones I saved are from a woman I’m still friends with, some decade later.

She’s a good friend. We’ve talked on the phone a fair bit, and our email and chat correspondence could reach the moon and back, at least twice. We’ve met face to face twice, and she keeps sending me real estate listings for her area (hella cheap huge houses, almost no roads, no good pizza). She’s smart and hilarious and creative and she listens to my problems but doesn’t let me wallow in self pity or be passive aggressive. She calls me on my shit and makes me face unpleasant truths about my life, and myself. But she is also quick to point out the positives I have and to encourage me. I can always count on her to give me an honest answer about anything I ask her.

I’m not super good at making friends. I never have been. Acquaintances? sure! a lot of people like me, but there are very few people I feel a connection to. She’s one of them, and I would never have met her or gotten to know her without the internet.