Taylor the Teacher

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Because I don’t talk to each of my things individually, just to my stuff as a whole, I just miss the DSM-III R for legal schizophrenia. I checked. Besides talking to my collective stuff is insightful and sophisticated.  Talking to individual things would be crazy.

This morning, at 6:59, I bounced a bunch of my stuff out of bed before dawn.  All that stuff was wondering what the special occasion was, and discussing the strange warmth on their surfaces. I said to my stuff,

It’s over between us. I have moved you through two states, two classrooms within the same school, four apartments and one divorce. I’ve carried you up and down stairs and shuffled you in boxes around the house ~lovingly~ and in and out of cars for months now. Surely you see I cared for you?

You’re GREAT STUFF.  I just can’t let you be my stuff anymore.

A lot of you were from a previous marriage. How much longer could I keep an electric carving knife from my first wedding in NINETEEN NINETY NINE that I never opened once? I had to plug the knife in to see if it was defective. ~have never “roasted” anything that was still attached to its carcass~ 

Many of the books I collected only so that I’d have lots of you in my classroom.  How many copies of “Romeo and Juliet” does one English teacher need? ~why do I have seventy-five thousand thumb-tacks and no toilet paper?~

The hardest to part with were the gifts. In getting rid of gifts, I tried not to be bitchier than necessary, but there was no fair way to treat you all the same. All gifts are not the same. There are important considerations like how many other gifts are around the house from that person, and how much longer that person is likely to live. ~don’t take it so hard, gift giving is an art. you’ll be someone’s perfect gift someday. i believe in true gifthood~

Other factors include size, heft, and usefulness.

 Also, if I haven’t seen or heard from the person who gave you to me in nine years, I am legally free from the obligation to haul you around to the end of my sorry days on this earth. ~exceptions apply~

If you’re out here today, it’s because you’re the best. You’re the best of all the stuff I no longer need or want. But there’s nobody out here who is a loser. Every one of you can, with a little gumption & some hard work, go home happy today with somebody else.

Do your best. But know this: the two humans and the feline are the only ones that will ever see the inside of that house again. I will not be reconsidering.

I got up early today & hauled you out here. 

This is not the day to test me.