2026 will be my year of cleaning up, of paring down. I’ll likely begin with the closets, looking for disposables like clothes that don’t fit, or hobbies I’ll never pursue.
When I first started thinking about the year ahead, I drafted the following list of lost things, some of which have since been recovered.
My youthful innocence
My taste for candy corn
The four-dollar coat I cannot live without
Bladder control
My waistline
Patience for selfishness in others
That safe feeling I used to have alone in the car with my father
My Spyderco pocket knife, the one I could open with one hand
Humility in the face of beings bigger than me
The belief that my parents knew more than I about life
My balance
The ability to tolerate bores
Being able to jump four feet high
Baby fat
My Nana
Jesse the Wonder Horse
Things I might consider losing:
Distrust
The need to be in control
Regret
Disdain for those who don’t think like me
Things I’d like to find:
Twenty million dollars
Uncried tears
The story within the stories
I’m looking forward to mining old journals for nuggets of gold, excited about fixing the last 393 broken links in our Troutsfarmtoo website, and a little nervous about searching my psyche for narratives that no longer serve me.
By mucking around in the many facets of my life, I’ll likely stumble across things I’d forgotten or lost. Some of which I’ll be happy to recover, and others, which needed thrown out years ago.
They say it’s not an adventure if it doesn’t feel scary. Wish me luck!
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3 replies on “Litany of Lost Things”
I almost posted a quote on FB the other day I ran across by Henry Ford that said, ‘When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” I love that you’re cleaning up mentally and physically. There’s so much to unpack and sort. I love how the covers of your journals have zebras, Mayan faces, flowers…things you love and associate with. Going through those will be fun. There’s so much I’ve forgotten. When I come across things I wrote, it’s like reading them for the first time. “The mind is a terrible thing to waste,” said somebody lol.
So many things forgotten, yes. I’ve run into photographic evidence of events I don’t recall while fixing our website links, too. For example, in 2007 we packed a plugged log into a suitcase and flew from Oregon to Raleigh. Two and a half later, the log bore a flush of shiitake mushrooms.
Oh my you are going to be busy. Best of luck to all of your searching. Miss you ?