Adventures In Lockdown - How Many Lives Have I Lived?
If you’ve been reading my previous Adventures In Lockdown pieces, you’ll know I’ve embarked on an epic sort out and tidy that started as me trying to clear a space to work from home during the lockdown , but has since turned into a mammoth undertaking with me sorting through the entire house and gleefully having a huge clear out of various things I’ve collected and stashed away over the years. I’m now sat comfortably at my new desk, which I’m sure I score butch points for assembling all by myself. I’m lit by relaxing coloured glowing lighting, all voice controlled by my nice new Echo, that I can also bring the news headlines and stuff on, all the necessary things are here, including a lovely big mug of coffee. I’ve succeeded in my original task. I now have a brilliant workspace.
Now, it would have been really easy to stop there. I’m a master of procrastination and very easily distracted. I used to have to have a friend round to chat to and have a coffee with while I sorted through stuff, as it would stop me reading absolutely every leaflet or booklet I’d come across or getting lost in old photo albums. Having company would stop me doing that, but obviously during the current circumstances, this hasn’t been an option. But strangely, I’ve noticed something has changed in me. I still look at all the things I’m coming across while sorting, but I’m more focussed than ever! It’s quite strange for me, as an artistic soul, I’m very prone to letting my mind wander and have been likened to a cat in that I can happily curl up and do nothing for twenty hours a day and just let time pass if the mood takes me, but for some reason right now, I’m really going for it! I think it’s because, as I’ve said before, I’m busy but on my own terms. There’s no one breathing down my neck or checking up on me and also because the work I’m doing actually directly benefits me. Whatever the reason, I’m running with it. I’m actually having fun. Apparently, I’m now the sort of person who gets excited about storage boxes. If I wasn’t enjoying this so much, I’d be ashamed of myself.
But, motivations and methods aside, today I want to talk about the memories and feelings that having a good clear out can stir in us. There’s no doubt that having a good sort out is incredibly cathartic, especially for me, as I say I’m not a hoarder, but… on closer inspection, I’m pretty guilty. I’ll deny it til the cows come home, but if I’m really honest with myself, I am. It’s not a bad thing, though it’s not great either. If I really think about it, I am the offspring of two hoarders, so I suppose it was inevitable. My mother’s kitchen is a long running joke as I regularly find items older than me hidden away, but that’s another story entirely. I’ve been coming across all sorts of things as I’ve tidied, from different periods in my life, some in great condition as they were the last time I saw them and some in not so great condition, but the thing that’s constantly amazing me is our perception of time when going through all those things.
One regularly hears older folk saying that they can remember the events of thirty, forty, even fifty years ago “as if it were yesterday” and it’s amazing, now that I’m getting older that some of these items can trigger memories to come flooding back as if they took place mere moments ago, but its funny how something can seem recent but at the same time so long ago! A conversation I had yesterday In fact, after finding a ‘thank you’ card from my little brother with his little cheeky grin shining out of the photo at me. He was standing in front of a Dalek during the height of his love of Doctor Who which, as kids do with every interest when they’re young, he grew out of. I didn’t. But, as he wore the leather jacket that he wanted because it was like the Ninth Doctor’s and his interest in the show lasted about three years, I reckoned that it must be from around 2006. He’s a strapping tall rugby playing twenty-three year old now and him being so little seems like ages ago, even though I still think of him as my ‘baby brother’. But 2005/2006, when the picture was taken, seems fairly recent, yet what we said in conversation was that YouTube started in 2005 and that feels like its been around forever! Time is a strange thing. It can feel a short time ago and a lifetime ago, all in the same memory. Quite appropriate really, that the memory in question involves Doctor Who! Much like the Time-Lord in question with his regenerations, delving into one’s past often feels like certain events are from whole other lifetimes, especially when we think of who we are now compared to who we were then. I often joke that if I could meet my younger self, I’d probably smack the shit out of him. To me, he’s a different person entirely.
The journey continued as I found the old walking boots I wore for a trek in Morocco that I’d shoved in the back of a cupboard, probably shortly after my return. There were a few other bits from that trip with them, but nothing specific, souvenir-like or worth keeping, but that almost felt like it had happened to a different person! That trip was in 2007! I think of all that’s happened since, I look at the photos that were taken on a really poor quality digital camera and lament that I didn’t have one as good as we have now, but the memories are still there and hopefully will be for a long time to come. And it was quite an adventure. It was a charity trek in the Atlas Mountains with some time at either end of the trip in a lovely hotel in Marrakesh, overlooking the huge, lush gardens owned by Yves-Saint-Laurent. I never made it to the summit, as I took ill somewhere near the top, but I’m still very proud that it was something I did and one day, I’d love to go back and finish it. It was something I’d never dreamed of doing and some of the friendships forged on that trip are certainly life-long. But, the boots serve no purpose now, they’re not wearable anymore and I have enough souvenirs of this trip. It’s been nice reflecting for a moment, but out they go!
Then, there was my high school yearbook. The feelings and memories that brings back are fairly obvious. That’s the kind of thing I’m now keeping in my memory box. It’s the sort of thing you keep. There were a few pictures I remember taking on a disposable camera (remember them?) before we finished school. I tucked them inside the yearbook because they’re memories I’d like to keep too! I think of how much I’ve changed since then, again, it almost feels like a different lifetime, but one I’m lucky enough to have the memories of.
I’ve always been a bit of a shutterbug and over the years have always had a camera in my hand, usually on my phone over the last few years. My gang would often be heard complaining “put the bloody camera away” at gatherings, but now, we’re all grateful I’ve kept our memories alive and there are times we’ve sat with an old hard drive of pictures having a good laugh at the past. Like the twenty-first century equivalent of flicking through photo albums. I reactivated an old computer during the massive tidy and I wasn’t disappointed but a massive folder of the past on there. I can’t wait to get the gang together to go through them! Surely we were never that young! A box of promotional swag from my first UK pride parade, a fake Oscar I came home with drunk after an Oscars-themed work party, show tickets, photo-op prints from conventions, even my school Record of Achievement and my old work folder from one of my longest employers containing performance reviews and various souvenirs. Some of these things felt like mere weeks ago, some entire lifetimes ago! Reading descriptions from old school reports that described me as ‘quiet’ – who was this? I don’t remember that! It’s amazing how time and experience shape us. What would the different versions of ourselves make of each other if they could meet? It’s something I recently explored in my video message to my younger self for IDAHOT, which might be why it’s on my mind so much.
Still, the main thing is, all these possessions are now condensed, cleaned and pleasantly stored with a new sense of order none of my younger selves could have dreamed of. Perhaps it’s a result of having more time to do things now or perhaps my latest ‘regeneration’ just enjoys order a little more. Either way, everything’s more tidy now and that’s the way it’s staying. Now I’ve got space to work, space to film, a much better, clutter free space to exist in and I feel much more ready to journey into the future. Here’s to looking back at this version of myself in years to come!
Stay Safe, Stay Sane, Stay Vidalicious x
