Who is the curator of your life?

Is it you?

Sounds rhetorical, right? I mean who else would it be? You decide what you’re going to let in and what you’re going to keep out. You are in charge of what other people get to see and what they don’t. YOU oversee and manage the contents of your life.

But curator comes from the Latin: curare meaning “take care”.

That’s a little different from managing. Do I take care? Hmm. Well yes and no.

When it comes to my family, yes. We do what matters deeply to us. We read poetry, go to the MOMA, have musical jam sessions, play sports, do weekly movie snuggle nights, have dinner as a family every night.

Most families I know take care of their families in the way that matters to them. BUT, I don’t know how true this is for individual adults with or without kids. When it comes to myself, it depends. As regards basics like eating well and exercise– yes.

Mostly. Apart from the occasional monthly chocolate and carb binges.

BUT, I collect the dead weight of worry.

I worry about whether what I am doing makes a difference, whether it’s worth the time and energy and love I pour into it.

From teaching poetry workshops at school to fighting for mindful awareness in the curriculum, from devising strategies for new business and seeing my in-laws to fixing the grandfather clock and retaining wall, it is a busy draining buzz.

It eeks in in increments.

It’s not like a giant worry dragon knocks on your door and you say, Sure come on in. Terrorize the place. Have a ball.

The insidious part of the worry sticky tape is it just rolls around in your mind picking up whatever it can find and you don’t really notice it so much until it gets so big it fills your entire head and you can no longer process, see or think about anything else.

It is a cumulatively built overnight catastrophe.

And then, this is my favorite part, for irony’s sake you decide to buckle down and worry about why you’re so worried.

This seemingly involuntary preoccupation with worry is most certainly not taking care nor is it managing my life’s content.

So, in our ever-evolving effort not to repeatedly make the exact same mistake, last night my husband and started a new ritual.

We call it doing a dead weight dump.

I know. Not really terribly well branded for two advertising people. BUT, we decided ON THE SPOT we were going to dump the dead weight of worrying about not having a more clever name. Plus, it kind of says what it is.

I referenced in an earlier post that our son Leo after a particularly rough patch asked if we could start doing souls check-ins. I love this. But I realized that it is impossible to do unless you are either worry-free or have done a proper dead weight dump.

The trick is you can’t pick up the other person’s dead weight and start braiding it into possible solutions. NOR can you begin analyzing why it is so incredibly turd-like.

Say it. Dump it. Next.

Getting it all out isn’t hard. But not deconstructing every last detail like the framework of some overpriced Restoration Hardware chair, was a bit more challenging.