object permanence

i’ve had some personal revelations recently

1. i dont use the things I own because i’m afraid of not having anything left
2. i especially don’t use the things I own when I cannot see them
3. number 2 is compounded by brain fog due to long covid;POTS and it makes me feel like a baby before it has come to terms with object permanence

I have spent the past few weekends downsizing my belongings and rearranging what’s left so that nothing is too hidden away (because then it simply does not exist, and what’s the point in that). I feel so much better now. My head is clearer. I am wearing lipstick I forgot I owned, and I found a t-shirt I made in university just in time to wear it when I was chairing a panel talk in Birmingham Art Museum about living in cities:

last year, when I was spending most days in bed upstairs, I didn’t see inside of the fridge so we kept having to throw food away because I had forgotten we had any. it was terrible. in this new stage of learning how to live in this body, i’m starting to realise how the home around me needs to change to become more accessible – and it’s not just about mobility or comfort, but about my brain as well. I know this isn’t limited to disability. I have friends who feel the same way. There’s just something really dark about it being such a constant in my life ever since I got ill, like illness wiped away energy and freedom, but it also erased the trinkets I have stored away in all the corners of my house. it's like when a character dies in a video game and all their loot falls to the ground. other players scavenge the goods and everything you had is gone in an instant. i kinda feel like brain fog has mugged me of so much, so it has been truly revitalising to go piece by piece through drawers full of wires and boxes full of shoes to remember what i have + who i am.

i said at the top of this blog post that i’d also had a personal revelation about not using what I own because I’m afraid of it being used up and gone, and leaving me with nothing to my name. I think that is a money thing, a class anxiety. And you would think that a cost of living crisis would tighten my grip on this issue but instead I feel more motivated to use the fancy shower gel I’ve been ?saving? because life is getting so bad so fast that I think fuck it, might as well. Putting lipgloss over the lipstick because I might as well. Finally eating the nerds ropes my friend brought me over from Colorado because if there was ever a time I needed the joy of micro plastic sour sweets, it’s probably definitely now.