I intentionally burned a bunch of stuff last weekend

Had a minor, but solid!, victory last week while camping.

For the better part of the previous nine months I had mostly fretted over pruning the contents of one of the big bins of childhood paperwork that has been sitting pretty in front of the Christmas Closet (aka where I store my tiny winter village houses). I made a little progress, but of course not as much as I had hoped for. Who knew picking through old crappy art projects could inspire so much dread and kick-the-can-down-the-lane-ness?

But progress it was, and thus my paper bags-worth of memory cast-offs made its way to the campgrounds with me on my June weekend camping trip.

The first night sucked: got the fire going, feeding it with old spelling tests and multiple choice quizzes about the Teapot Dome scandal, and then a thunderstorm struck. My little battery-powered weather radio, which I was so proud to have remembered to bring instead of relying solely on my phone, like the mature adult I am, was threatening "quarter-sized hail". What? Like, the diameter of a quarter?* So the fire went out and I hid in my car like a big girl. No hail came, thankfully.

Night 2 I managed to wring the water out of the coals of the old fire and got a new one going. Ended up throwing two bags on (total) before I got too buzzed on my 8% hard cider and tired myself out too much to toss the other two.

Night 3 I was thoroughly camped-out and sunburn and went home early to sleep in a Real Bed(TM).

The original plan was: pre-prune from the safety of my own home, don't look in the damn bags again, and toss the entire bag itself onto the fire and burn the whole lot together before I can second guess myself.

But I third-guessed myself, of course, and so I still have those two bags shoved into my kindling/ firestarter bin that I bring camping with me.

I know, and my therapist knows that I know, that two > zero and any progress is progress, etc. etc. ... but man does it suck knowing that I've been waiting literal months for camping season to start up again and I couldn't even finish with what little I had managed to prep. (the original goal was to go through the entirety of my old school crap and burn it ALL this summer. Like, to the point I was actively frustrated that I couldn't find a winter cabin campsite where I could burn things in the heart of January. Whoops!)

But internalizing a small victory is another step of the process I just gotta squeeeeeeeeeeeeze into the middle of all of the other steps, I guess. Noted breakthrough in that I did have a thought of "why am I doing this dumb shit to myself, I could've shredded this" for at least a few pieces, which is another minor success, judging from how Therapist thoughtfully nodded when I told her.

I'm living and dying by those subtle nods through this shit!

Got rid of two paper bags worth of old school papers by burning with some camp wood I already had

Threw out a bag's worth of old plastic planting pots and an old and gross plastic bird feeder

Threw out unneeded packaging for sewing machine and boxes for appliances

Did another few pages of my junk journal, with stuff I had set aside and found while digging in bins of papers

Already found my next junk journal (gifted blank book)

Ran through my non-fiction bookshelf once, pulled something for donation

DNF'd a book I wasn't feeling, striking it from my TBR list

"Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics", edited by Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg

Been doin' a little pulling-with-intent-to-donate of my non-fiction bookshelves and this popped out. Got it from a library booksale years ago. It's mostly poetry, which isn't really my jam, but I'll give it a try.

I feel like combining the feminine with the gooey/gross/nasty is something that's only been gaining stream since this collection came out in 2010, or maybe that was just my TikTok feed two years back.

*America once again refuses the sweet siren song of the metric system. Heck, I'd have even taken "ping-pong ball-sized"