I threw thousands of dollars in the trash today and feel great about it

couple of years ago I was worried about what the future was looking like for me with my mom getting older and knowing I would need to step up for her when she needed it and I was getting older too. So thanks to my no-frills lifestyle and some timely good investment decisions I made when this country wised up and hired a solid businessman instead of another liberal whack job to get the bloated jack-booted government created by the worst mistake America has ever made obama, an economic boom the likes of which America has never seen before, funded my retirement and that worry was never again going to take up space in my head.

So back to a couple years ago. I began looking around at ALL the stuff  I had acquired over the years in my house and my garage most of it related to the TV business I had been in and weren't going to be using anymore and one day I just started tossing some of those things into huge trash bags and kicking them to the curb. I had at least 15 black garbage bags full of things that would have given a heart attack to most hoarders who would have seen the value in a lot of it but it just had to go or I was going to drown in the misery of seeing it stacked up all over every day.

For me, its use it or toss it out and there isn't much in between. I can't bear the idea of going through tons of things collected over the years and trying to sort through my sentiMENTAL issues with it or the hassles related to selling and shipping stuff I just wanted the stuff to be gone. Old Playboy and Time magazines from the late 60s and 70s, a full set of encyclopedia from the year 1969. Some of that I kept and still have but all the TV business stuff that I spent 10s of thousands of dollars on and no longer use, that stuff got bagged and tossed. Even 100s of videotapes of murders, house fires, cop chases and on and on and on from almost 20 years of giving the impression to viewers every day that those idiotic events were something of value they needed to know about, all of it, thrown out.

But not all of it and today a lot of what was left got tossed to the curb and I feel really good about it. I made a lot of money in the TV business and that stuff helped me do it but I'm no longer interested in shooting TV and one of the first things I feel the urge to do in my "new life," is intense purging of massive volumes of unwanted crap. So out it went..

Why don't you have a garage sale, why not donate it, and a hundred other suggestions will come out of people who read this but trust that I know how I operate and thinking about the hassles surrounding any of that would force me to just leave it all junked up here and that, ain't happening anymore over here. Like I said, for me, it's keep it or throw it out and today I felt like I needed a good ole fashion purge and it felt good. A little sad, but good.

Maybe it's self-therapy that drove me today I'm not sure but the idea of going minimalist is appealing to me like at no other time in my life. When I was traveling all over the world and shooting it may have looked like I had a full well-rounded life but ever since my mom passed away it's become clear to me that everything I ever did was for her to feel proud of me and not to worry I would turn out how my much younger years appeared to be taking me. I wanted her to be proud of what I was doing, excited that I was seeing the world and able to show some of it to her in photos and videos. Now with her gone, it feels like there is no worthwhile reason to do any of that anymore. My mom was my entire world and although I knew it in my heart, I don't think I was completely aware of it in my head. Today I am fully aware and all that I have left in my possession associated with that other life prior to her not being here is just another reminder of the depth of the loss and it hurts.

my first fake "Official Press" I.D.

 So out it went a few years ago and out it went today and I'm not even half done. One day I'll write about how I landed in the television business in the first place and it will be interesting to a few, it will piss off several,  and it will be believable to almost no one. Don't touch that dial.





I plan on renovating one house and doing most of it myself to keep my mind busy and instead of living between two houses and trying to keep up with them both, I'll probably sell one. 20 years of television gear and memories and tapes (yes we used to use tape) and the thousands of dollars spent to get it all done and I'm pushing all of that out of my new life as fast as I can. One day soon there will be nothing left in my possession to show I ever had a life that wasn't directly connected to taking care of my mom and I'm perfectly fine with that and looking forward to it.

Mom was always more proud of me than I ever was of myself and I intend on living my new life in a way as close as possible to one she would want for me. So I need to get all this stuff out of my way.

Dear heavenly father to you I owe my every smile, my every happy moment, and my gratefulness at having the mom that you blessed me with. Please keep your hand on my shoulder and guide me with the light of the memories of my sweet mom towards the day when you are ready for me to see her again. I literally cannot wait. Amen and amen.