Sometimes, you find stuff you weren't looking for.

 

It's been a little under 27 years since my late wife passed, and things related to her life still pop up now and then.  Today, I stumbled across some items related to her life and our life that I didn't expect to see. First came baby pictures of my wife in a small book related to her early life.  Then, I found our wedding certificate near the book.  It doesn't mean much, save that it is a reminder that she was an important part of my life.

Soon, it will be the 27th anniversary of my wife's death.  I was very lucky to have had her in my life when I did, and I cherish the memories of that time.  Yes, she did know that I liked wearing women's clothes (I didn't know what being transgender was) and accepted this on all but our wedding night.  But I'll always wonder, that had she survived, would she have accepted me for who and what I am?

While cleaning up the apartment, I also found something I wasn't looking for - some costume jewelry that I liked to wear, that usually hung on the knobs of a dresser near my computer desk. When the electricians were here in August, I had to move the dressers, so that they would be able to get at the electrical outlets behind them.  So, I put everything into a bag, and stuffed it into the mess sitting on a chest near the foot of my bed.

At this point, cleanup was a big "might as well" task, and I started to empty out one of my dresser drawers, so that I had a place to stash some of the mess on top of my desk. And I realized that I could start another donation bag for charity.  There were 6 sweaters in that drawer, and 3 of them went into the donation bag.  Now, I had a place where I could put my leggings, so that I knew where they were.

In the end, I still had a mess, but I was making progress towards getting this place in shape....

Taking care of business (part 3)

 

A week ago, electricians came to the apartment to remediate issues caused by the aluminum wiring in my apartment complex.  Not dealing with this issue would increase the possibility of a fire, and our insurance would not cover us until this work is complete.  Today was the second visit from the electricians .  However, this visit was to deal with outlets behind my bed and dressers that couldn't be reached on their first visit.  To get to these outlets, I had to dump lots of stuff into bins and boxes to get it out of the way (to be sorted out later), so that the furniture could be moved to access the outlets.

In the process of moving furniture, I found a lot of stuff that had fallen behind the dressers and bed that was too hard to get at in normal circumstances.  Once things are back to normal, I will sort through everything I put into bins and boxes to determine what stuff to keep and what stuff to trash.  This is something that everyone should do every few years, and it's been almost 30 years since I've done this because furniture movement is a daunting task for me these days.

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The electricians were supposed to be here at 9:00 am.  By 9:30, I was getting concerned that something was screwed up, as I had no notice of any problem.  So I did two things in parallel: Write an email to the co-op's managing agent to notify them of the problem, and to call them immediately afterward.  Obviously, I got someone's attention, as within 15 minutes, I found out that the electricians would be here within a few minutes.

When the electricians arrived, they were apologetic - they had come off of an emergency call (the electric had gone out in half of a person's house in White Plains), and couldn't make it back to me on time.  They were also surprised to find out that I hadn't been notified of the problem, as I would have been less anxious and annoyed at having to wait longer than expected.  Within 30 minutes, they had finished work on all 3 of my remaining outlets, furniture was back in place, and I was able to relax and take a nap.

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What I haven't mentioned about today was that I didn't get much sleep the night before.  So, when TCL called to tell me that she wasn't feeling well and couldn't do lunch today, I was a bit happy that this happened.  We can schedule lunch for when I'm more rested and awake....

Slowly eliminating clutter from an apartment

 

Over the past year, RQS and I have been clearing out a lot of clutter from my apartment.  It has been like playing a hybrid game of Jenga and Tetris, as I've had to find room for things I want to keep while both adding and purging things from the apartment.

One of the things many M2F transgender people do is to learn what clothes work (or don't work) on their bodies.  They also learn what clothes they should wear for all occasions, and make a lot of mistakes along the way.  But the thing we don't learn easily is how to purge clothes we no longer wear or no longer look good in from our closets, so that we look good and appear appropriate for all occasions in the clothes we have left in our closets.  Lately, I have purged half of my feminine wardrobe with the help of RQS, and donated what I had to charity.  Now, I have room to back fill a small number of missing items into my wardrobe.  And I present a much better appearance to the world, now that I have a better focus on what I can wear.

But this is not the only clutter that I've been sorting through.  The other day, I started sorting through all my kitchen utensils, and found a few that I will either give away or toss in the trash.  This is typical of what I've been doing lately.  I find a place where I've stored way too many things, and sort through them when I find the time and the energy to take care of a certain amount of work in one area of my apartment.  The other day, it was an area of the kitchen.  Before that, it was cleaning out corners of my bedroom. And even before that, was an area near my dining room table.  I've gotten used to taking two steps forward, just to take one step back in this long term project of removing clutter from my abode.

I am hoping that I will rid the apartment of enough of my clutter before some required electrical work must take place.  When it does, I'll have to move furniture (or have it moved for me) so that an electrician can do work in my place.  So I'm working on the clutter now, so that I won't be overwhelmed by it later on....