Cleaning up

Last night, J went ballistic. He started to snatch up all the letters, catalogs, and papers from the table and the floor and to demand of me whether I wanted to keep them or not. He was like a bulldog, yanking me here and there (psychologically), not giving me a moment to think. Any hesitation and BOOM! whatever it was went into the trash. I found old bills I had not paid, ancient catalogs, old medications. We sorted these and tossed several bags of trash. Then, the whirlwind gained even more momentum, and J went into his room and with no hint of nostalgia whatsoever, tossed half his childhood into the bin, and most of the cats' toys too. Admittedly, they never played with these.
The place looks better, but it was a difficult experience while it was going on. R sat mute, and when it got too contentious, left for a while to take a long walk. J. apologized afterwards, and asked that I please try not to go back to my bad old ways.
Perhaps the national financial collapse is rather like this. I used to wish that something would come along and cause the whole mess of a dysfunctional economic and political system to self-destruct, so we could start over and maybe do better this time. I figured it would be kind of like when I clean out the closet. For a while, there is a terrible terrible scary mess. It seems as though the chaos will never clear out. But it begins after a while to thin, and order again reigns, at least for a while. With a lot of work and a modicum of pain, it eventually takes on some sort of shape. But the problem is, that though this metaphor works in the abstract, there are millions of human beings involved, their lives and their suffering. I feel like a child who believes an errant wish has caused catastrophe, though I know this is magical thinking. Like after 9-11, Ifind myself avoiding the news. But that's not going to change anything. I wish I could fast forward a few years and see how it turns out--without going through the horrible mess stage. But we'll all make it. We always do.