Getting Connected

“Feel the power, yo, and plug it in!” – The Electric Company Theme

Mount Newsprint is no more.

Today is the last day of my week-long vacation, and even though I didn’t hit all the goals on the most recent edition of my To-Do list, I did make some progress in cleaning up my apartment.

I decided to stay local, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

I had no urge to get onboard a flying Covid-19 test tube, and go someplace where all the points of interest are either closed or severely restricted.

Most other countries aren’t allowing Americans entry anyway, given our appalling infection and death rates.

My one trip during the week was a ferry ride to downtown Manhattan.

This used to be my daily commute, but now, after nearly five months of quarantine, I felt like Magellan sailing off for parts unknown.

The route has changed since March and I wound up at the Cherry Street landing in downtown New York.

There wasn’t a hell of a lot to see, frankly, it was awfully hot, and I had to avoid people, but at least I got out of the neighborhood for a while.

When I got home, I began working a mound of old newspapers that had been stacked up in a corner of my living room for ages.

I had been telling myself that someday—very soon--I was going to read them all, wrap them in cord and throw them the hell out.

And the pile only got bigger.

The time had finally come to tackle this unwanted roommate, so I sat down and started thumbing through all the news that was fit to trash.

I went back in time, to the days before Covid-19, when only bank robbers and trick-or-treaters wore masks; when people went to bars, restaurants, and theaters without having to dive into a barrel of Purell afterwards, and when the phrase “social distancing” simply did not exist.

Socket It to Me

This was getting depressing, as well as time-consuming, so I started to skim the articles that appealed to me… then I just read the opening paragraphs…then just the headlines…and finally I just threw the papers into the pile without even looking at the front page.

I really hate doing this, especially since I’m a reporter and I felt like I was betraying the profession.

We live in an age where people are woefully uninformed and this lack of knowledge makes us more susceptible to the legion of power-hungry con artists who prey upon an ignorant population.

But I had to make some hard decisions or I’d sink into the ink.

I’m embarrassed to say that I found newspapers from 2016—yes, four freaking years ago—when Donald Trump was still a political joke instead of a presidential nightmare.

But what’d even more disturbing is what I discovered after chopping the stack down to size.

I looked at the wall and saw an electrical outlet that I had completely forgotten about because it had been camouflaged by all that paper.

I stared at the outlet in disbelief. How did that get here? Did someone install that thing while I was out riding the high seas?

People say that holding onto the past takes away your power and here was the perfect example. All that old news was just getting in the way of a source of energy.

I’ve been holding on to negative memories and experiences for so long that it feels normal.

I have so much old business on my agenda that there’s little room for new business--or new energy.

Where does this come from? I have a tendency toward self-sabotage, which comes from both fear and self-loathing, where I tell myself I’m not worthy of love, success, or happiness, and my subconscious happily obliges.

It’s been said that you can only make a mistake once in life. When you do it again, it’s not a mistake, it’s a choice.

I see so many times in my life where I made unhealthy choices that I wrote off as bad luck or rotten circumstances. But I was really throwing away my power.

I have decided to use the newly-discovered wall socket as a gauge for what’s going on in my life. If Mount Newsprint starts to grow again, it’ll be a definite sign to clean house.