 |
| © istockphoto.com/pgiam |
It's amazing how time flies, but even more so when you're blue. It wasn't exactly a conscious decision, but I've gone more than three years without posting anything to my blog, and it's also been awhile since I've shared much anywhere else, at least when it comes to COH experiences. For several reasons, the last few years have been the most consciously challenging of my life. (It's probably true that growing up in a cat urine-soaked hoard was at least as challenging, but I did my best to not to be conscious of it at the time.)
Although I've been involved a little bit behind the scenes with some COH stuff in the last couple of years, it has been extraordinarily difficult for me to process exactly how much being a COH has impacted almost every aspect of my life. Sometimes, I've felt like one of those spy movie characters who wakes up one day and realizes that he's not at all the person he thought he was, or ever was; his whole life seems a fiction, and now he has to start from scratch and build a new life and a new identity that he can claim as truly his own. There were days I wished I had never learned more about hoarding or discovered anything about being a COH; it seemed easier to coast along on the momentum of my own ignorance.
I think the only thing I've been certain of during the last few years is that I've been wildly off course. On the bright side, I think I've been getting my bearings. In many ways, I've still been hiding from my past, even though I've been involved with the COH community in one way or another for more than ten years. After all that time, perhaps now I can start integrating the experiences of my past into the kind of future I'd like to have. Hey, when it comes to some things, I'm a slow learner, okay?
See you around,
HS
Although I've been involved a little bit behind the scenes with some COH stuff in the last couple of years, it has been extraordinarily difficult for me to process exactly how much being a COH has impacted almost every aspect of my life. Sometimes, I've felt like one of those spy movie characters who wakes up one day and realizes that he's not at all the person he thought he was, or ever was; his whole life seems a fiction, and now he has to start from scratch and build a new life and a new identity that he can claim as truly his own. There were days I wished I had never learned more about hoarding or discovered anything about being a COH; it seemed easier to coast along on the momentum of my own ignorance.
I think the only thing I've been certain of during the last few years is that I've been wildly off course. On the bright side, I think I've been getting my bearings. In many ways, I've still been hiding from my past, even though I've been involved with the COH community in one way or another for more than ten years. After all that time, perhaps now I can start integrating the experiences of my past into the kind of future I'd like to have. Hey, when it comes to some things, I'm a slow learner, okay?
See you around,
HS
