Grandmother's death unexpectedly (more unexpectedly than close relative's death?) unlocked a vault of depression I haven't dealt with in a while. Coupled with long-term vacation, where work isn't there to stay my over-stressed stimulant, the constant fight in the 'fight or flight' choice, the unexpected news have made me face some undercurrents in my brain which are usually, I suspect, safely shut off from consumption.

I feel differently motivated, which is unsettling (not wrong or right - just new and still raw); feel annoyed with intra-human emptiness which comes from unsatisfying friendships; feel a yearning for something more complex and fulfilling, without clarity as to which area of my life needs that most. I'm sensing that the 'work void' has identified a sustained void in relationships - ridiculously aligned, metaphysically same-paged, soulfully matched people who fathom, cook, read, think, dream, challenge same or similar things, or very different things but similarly in process, approach, thought, motives.

I'm also slowly growing overwhelmed with stuff. There's stuff everywhere - in this room, this house, this life, this mind. I will begin to annihilate stuff - it slows me down, it creates restlessness and panic, it begets more stuff, it takes place of people, and takes people's place. Shit's got to go. Mindfully - in the reduce/reuse/recycle (or sell it all at a giant garage sale) kind of way, but I will claim space back, for fewer things which hold greater importance. I'm an unexpected minimalist, it turns out.

I'd also prefer to occupy a bit less space myself - with my person - would like to meet again a slender stalk of a college girl thinking her way through late teens / early twenties. Just as the external junk slows down life juice and overwhelmingly suffocates, the extra flesh hanging around internally  challenges physical acuteness, feeling of being - and staying - awake, feeling of light, and of direction, and of air, and of inflection. I'm an anchor to myself, which is doubly annoying. I will not find myself slouched over a second-rate meal, in ill-fit clothing and feeling more invisible the larger I am. If it takes years, I'll dig up the strong, thin arrow of a girl I used to be, as fragile as she was magnificent. With years of pure haze of raising tiny humans slightly behind me, I see the well-being road up ahead and it's looking good to my drooping gaze and body. My forties, Lord willing, just may be my best decade yet.

So  what have I here? More acute awareness of fragility of family; search of soulful acquaintances; want of less junk; and need of more health, as body-mind connection fires off strong. I'm good with my inventory. It is not extensive, or exhaustive; yet it commits me to specific actions, and releases me from others.