Wow, it's June already and I haven't posted in a while. A. still hasn't started work so many of my free moments at home lately have been spent with him trying to get things done around the house. We moved into this house almost 4 years ago and a month later my sister died from complications of breast cancer. As time passed I lost any enthusiasm for unpacking, putting things where they belonged or making things look good. More time went by and I started to feel a little better and began to do more things around the house when
bam! I get my 2
nd cancer diagnosis and I'm laid out from major surgery, radiation and chemotherapy for a good many more months and while we have certainly done a lot of work since then, a lot has gone by the wayside. The recurrence this past December and subsequent treatment put me back into overwhelmed mode. An example (one of many), Z.'s playroom floor went from ankle deep to knee deep to hip deep since my 2
nd diagnosis and surgery and my reaction to it was to close the door (and usually to sigh or moan loudly and if Z. was around to tell her to
please clean up her playroom which was beyond impossible for her to do at that point). Now that she is about to turn 10 it really is time to get rid of the many outgrown toys and books that are overwhelming the room (and not just the playroom but her bedroom and the other rooms of the house that they spill over into). This photo was taken last October, it only got worse since then, despite attempts by Z. and A. periodically to put things away and A. and my attempts at further organization (which included replacing the broken bookcase with a taller one).
Something kind of snapped in me recently and my long standing overwhelmed reaction to it all has changed into feeling a great need to take care of this now, while I am well. As more time goes by I am more and more focused on living for today, taking that family trip, eating that great meal, going to that concert, growing those tomatoes, and getting my house in order. I have a friend in hospice, truly living day by day, and friends in treatment for recurrences and along with my own uncertain future health status I am feeling a need for getting my surroundings in order. We redid and organized our office and today we brought 12 paper grocery bags of ancient personal papers to one of those giant shredder trucks. It was so satisfying seeing two giant trash cans of our junk being loaded into the truck shredder. It was freeing. I am tired of being bogged down by junk, and boy do we have a lot of it (three
packrats in one big house, a recipe for disaster). So, little by little (because I am also not going to spend all my time doing this) I am going to tackle this enormous project and each day I clear a little away my mind will get lighter and freer.
3 comments:
Good for you, Michele. I hate getting bogged down by all the "stuff" of life, too, and try to keep chipping away at it in my home, too. Tell me more about those shredder trucks. I have a shredder, but it needs to be emptied every 3 minutes, and when I have three or four bags full of stuff to be shredded at a time, it takes forever! I would love to just dump it into some giant shredder. Tracy
They are usually sponsored by some kind of business, like the one we went to was sponsored by a local savings bank (and they had people there to give out literature about the bank, however they didn't bother us, you could go over to the brochure table if you were interested). I have also heard of local TV stations sponsoring them. We were just lucky in that we had all this junk, I said to A. that we should try and find out if there was going to be a shredder truck anywhere, he mentioned it to someone that afternoon and they told him about this one that coming weekend. We couldn't have planned it any better!
We have "Shred It" that comes to work and takes care of the shredding at work, and they periodically set up around town as a public service to shred personal stuff.
I had to LOL about Z's playroom picture because we have so been there, done that, cleaned it up and it creeps again. But getting rid of things, packing up things to save (like Little People and Duplos), and putting some organization to it has helped contain things. And now the guys will often leave things for me with a comment that they think we should hand it down to someone littler than they are.
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