Dumping My Purse - June 22, 2009

About 20 years ago, when it seemed like my entire world had fallen apart (divorce, failed love affair, and a dead-end career), I sat in a bar in Hollywood with a friend of mine and poured out my soul. After a lengthy monologue (and lots of Kleenex), I sat quietly and waited for a sympathetic response. My friend, with pithy wisdom beyond his years, looked me in the eye and said, simply: "You know Valri, sometimes you've just gotta dump your purse". I have remembered those words from time to time and have acknowledged that they are of course, much easier to say than to do.

"Dumping your purse" does not mean getting a new one. Your purse is your purse and while you CAN get a new one, it will ultimately wind up stuffed inside the old one. Eventually, you'll need to get rid of it. Dumping your purse means exactly what it sounds like. All women know the exercise of dumping a purse. You must set aside real time for it. You literally turn the bag upside down and let fall ALL of the contents. Then you must painstakingly go through it all, paper by paper, loose coin by loose coin, gum wrapper by gum wrapper, unused coupons, old Kleenex, a great photo, postage stamps, lost earrings, band aids, sales receipts, warranties, "to-do" lists, "to-get lists", phone numbers, tampons, nail files, that bill you thought you'd paid, pens, crap you bought and don't know what to do with, ALL OF IT - and commit to tossing the majority of it. Once you find it, you go through your wallet and clean that out too - tossing old business cards, worn post-it notes, fortune-cookie fortunes. You straighten out the bill department, put things away and in order. When you are done, all that is left is your neat, organized wallet, some beloved photos, whatever money was in there, your keys, and a lipstick. But you're not done yet because if you're serious about this, you have to get the vacuum and suck out all the crumbs and dust bunnies from the bottom of the bag - making sure to get all the corners and creases. Only then can you return what is really essential and generally, the bag weighs about 11 pounds less. But MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL - you MUST toss the rest in the garbage where it belongs. You CANNOT leave any of it on a dresser to be later sifted through again. You cannot give any time to consider if you might still want some of what you just took out. If you do, in a matter of days it will all be back in the purse. There's just no where else to put it.

The point of all this is that yesterday I turned 52, and in this unprecedented and miserable economy, I find myself unemployed for the first time in my entire life. I have three daughters grown and ready to leave and one still in elementary school. My husband's career is precarious and the future I have always had clearly in my vision has disappeared. I see nothing in its place and it is unnerving. So yesterday, on a birthday I didn't want to acknowledge, I took a look in the proverbial mirror and saw myself appearing pretty scared and holding on for dear life to my purse. My rather heavy purse. The big, huge black hole of a purse that I carry with me everywhere I go. Taking a look inside of it, I saw that it is a mess of things that I believed helped define me but now just remind me of who I am not and that I am really afraid.

Clearly, a purse dumping is in order.

I thought I'd dump it here, on this blog so that I can be accountable for doing it and so that anyone else who needs to dump her purse will know that she is not alone. So today is day one. I'm about to turn it upside down.