I am having some weird issues lately, and I suspect this is what I’ve heard Brene’ Brown describe: “Sometime in middle age, the Universe pulls you close and whispers in your ear, ‘I’m not fucking around.’ ” Life has been sort of like travelling through the Kuiper Belt, dodging asteroids and planets interrupted. One thing after another, you dodge, you weave, you crawl then you run like hell until the next obstacle appears. Life, what a beautiful choice.
After living here for more than 20 years, my apartment complex has apparently just discovered that i am a slob. More importantly, they can get a higher rent price from a new tenant (they went up on my rent this year, just to make the point). There is a relatively new manager (who looks like Marjorie Taylor Greene), which I believe is where this all starts. She is determined to kick ass and take names, and previous managers couldn’t have cared less about most things. Their maintenance was always good, but things like “clutter” were your own business. Maintenance comes in and out for reported issues, so one would imagine that if things were THAT bad they would say something. But they were lax, and there was a tenant a few doors over who had been found to be a hoarder. She had stuff piled up from floor to ceiling, and when she mover she had to rent three dumpsters and some muscle to clean stuff out. I don’t know if she was evicted or voluntarily moved, but when the cleanup was happening there was even a porta-potty next to the dumpsters.
My “clutter” is nowhere near floor to ceiling, but the manager as made a big deal of it. Whatever. I was furious when it first happened, feeling much like a child whose mommy has told them for the last time to clean their room. Regardless, I began a massive cleanup in here, even renting a small storage unit to get excess stuff out of here. Most of what I’ve brought to storage is books, but also just…stuff. The stuff you accumulate over time, a telescope I bought from an auction, an electric guitar I found at the garbage dumpster here. Some old clothes, sleeping bag, and…more books. There could be worse things. Anyhow, in the process of clearing out all of this stuff, I trashed some things that can no longer be used, or I can’t figure out how to use them and have no idea what purpose they serve. Many, many garbage bags have been ushered into the dumpster.
During this purge, I became more emotional than usual. I attributed that to being irregular with my anti-depressants, if I took them at all. This didn’t feel like the usual “I’m a worthless underachiever” kind of emotionalism, though. This was deep, old, a wailing from inside a very dark place. I thought maybe it was just a result of changing the energy in here, but there was something far more profound.
I’ve always been somewhat of a slob, since childhood. But this place was passable until the past few years, and then it became uncontrollable. While I was chastising (beating the crap out of ) myself for having let this happen, it suddenly occurred to me – when everything fell apart, including the job, was between 2015 and 2017. I put my mother into a nursing home at some point in 2015, and she died in August of 2017. All of this crap piled up and strewn about in this apartment was grief, shame, guilt, and misgivings. I still grapple with the guilt of I should have been there. How could I not know how long her toenails had gotten? I could have, should have, done better. Did I make the right decisions?
Those feelings are still there. I mistakenly thought I had gotten past the most apparent part of the grief, but there was – and is – so much more. With every pile of junk I throw out of this place, I am uncovering another layer of it. It’s painful. My mother had lived here for over a year after Katrina, so her energy is still here. She touched things in here. That is what I was trying to avoid, feeling that I was erasing her somehow. This is the last place I ever lived and had a daily life with my mother, so…not sure how covering it up with junk was supposed to commemorate that but I suppose it doesn’t have to make sense.
I’m an only child, and even at my age it feels as though I am an orphan. Both my parents are dead. My favorite aunt, my mother’s sister, is dead. My childhood is dead. Being an only child is glorious in some ways, because you get 100% of your parents’ attention, you don’t have to share your toys or your room with anyone, there’s you are non-comparable. But this is a blessing and a curse. You have noone who shares your experience, nobody to be a possible ally, nobody to authenticate what’s happening. When your family looks good on the outside but is a nightmare on the inside, you can’t touch base with anyone to make sure what you experienced really happened. When it’s just you and your reality is challenged, it would have been nice to compare notes with a peer who shared the same experience. The loneliness of that is still a big deal, but c’est la vie. Maybe all of the junk was my unconscious way of filling up the space, physically marking my spot – don’t ignore me, I’m in here. Ugh.
So, all of that notwithstanding, I am now selling my mother’s house; it’s officially on the market. I had it painted, and now have to have some repairs done to an add-on that is attached to the house. Who would have thought you had to spend money to make money from selling a house? Capitalism is such a fun economic system. I hope that whatever money I can clear from the sale will be enough to purchase another annuity, because I am getting very nervous about how I will fare in my final stage of life. I’m not having any luck finding a job so I may have worked my last gig for ‘da man’. That’s really fine if it were not for the reality of living – it is not free. I have to believe I’ll be OK, so I will just keep on keepin’ on. Truth be told, I rather enjoy this retirement-style life. I hope I can keep it up for the duration.
The Sound Hole 