A Lofty Clearance

It’s been a rather busy weekend here.  I’ve not actually stepped out the house once (other than into the garden), even though the weather has been fair both days.

The reason for my lack of outside time is because I’ve helped to clear the loft.  That expanse of space above our heads that has been mocking me for just over three years.  The place where boxes, clothes and leftover bits of lino have all been shoved to since we moved into the house.  It was our standard go-to for putting anything that “wouldn’t quite fit in any of our rooms”.  Along with the useless and broken, there is also the more important stuff.  

Loft’s are a bit like time machines aren’t they?  Storing all those old memories – photo’s letters and diaries.  As each box came down to be sorted out an awakening of memories broke out too.  Me, at least old me (young me!), from decades ago.  My thoughts and ideas when I was much younger.  School reports that told me I worked hard but “needs to speak up in class.  Photo’s of me and my family enjoying school days out (well, less of enjoying as being out of the normal school environment with people I wasn’t specifically friendly with wasn’t my idea of fun, nor was having my photo being taken looking at my scowling face).  How vocal I was in my pages but my photos show I was less so in reality (some things never change!).  Old email’s I’d printed out showing the detailed blossoming of a new relationship.  Happy birthday cards, and valentines cards too.

It was nice to see but then of course having done that I’m left with a sense of – who am I?  How have I got to this place in my life?  Have I done the best I can?  And even deeper thoughts about myself – am I the person I wanted to become?  I hate inwardly dissecting myself. 

I am here from all the choices that I have made since I was old enough to understand how to make them.  And while I constantly strive to always become better, I do feel like I’m an okay kinda person – at times exceedingly difficult to understand and occasionally just tense to be around, but also like a good pair of comfy slippers – I’m not going far and I know what I’m good at doing.  

But as you get older you get an awareness of what brought you to this moment.  And so you start to reflect on it.  It’s pretty usual, sometimes called a mid-life crisis.  Although I never felt that looking through my old archives this weekend.  A small, hesitant doubt wandered through my mind for a while – not of “What if’s”,  it was more like not achieving certain ideals and that one true calling that I thought I may have held as a child but which were fleeting moments shared on paper.  I have never truly grasped the energy that fuels my passions.  But, then who does – or can?  There are also so fleeting.  Just as I think I know what they are they seem to escape my grasp, like smoke.  And very often my enthusiasm and attention is then grabbed by something else.  A curse (I think it’s a curse), called multipotentialite:

 

A multipotentialite is a person who has many different interests and creative pursuits in life.

Multipotentialites have no “one true calling” the way specialists do. Being a multipotentialite is our destiny. We have many paths and we pursue all of them, either sequentially or simultaneously (or both).

Multipotentialites thrive on learning, exploring, and mastering new skills. We are excellent at bringing disparate ideas together in creative ways. This makes us incredible innovators and problem solvers.

When it comes to new interests that emerge, our insatiable curiosity leads us to absorb everything we can get our hands on. As a result, we pick up new skills fast and tend to be a wealth of information. — Emilie Wapnick, Terminology, Puttylike

Instead, I decided, it was better to look back at all these memories as building blocks to my life – the one that has brought me to this moment.  And that is too be very much celebrated.

I’m also very pleased we managed to get rid of all those empty cardboard boxes and old curtains.

Thank you for reading.