23. 200

I'm on vacation this week. I took a whole week off of work for a very special reason. Swedish death cleaning

I know what you're thinking, I sound fun!

My plan this week is to throw out, pass along, downsize 200 items in my house.

The sad part of all this is this is my third attempt doing this in the last 5 months. I have pieces of paper with little tick marks all over the house from the times before I started to throw things out.

For the last 30 years in January and April I have a tendency to do a little purge, just kind of reset my house.

When I first got married I thought “we” should be a strategic knickknack kind of couple, but that's not really my vibe.

And all a while Ian was growing up I wanted to be the kind of mother who had bins of holiday decorations and decorated house from top to bottom,  you know, the kind of person who has specific holiday throw pillows and napkins.

But I'm just not the kind of person either.

When Brian died I had to go through his house and go through all of his belongings and decide what Ian and I were keeping and what we were letting go of. It was gut wrenching to make a decision about every paper clip, every spoon, everything.

When Bret died because I was not his “legal partner” that job was not mine.

And when Bret died I was in a rental house in Phoenix and my lease was up and my son had just started college in Tucson and my life was in complete upheaval and I didn't know what to do so I hastily made the decision to follow my son to Tucson. I packed up everything in my house into a pod and I purging things left and right, trying to emotionally lighten my soul, things from my life, things from my life with Brian, things from my life with Bret and things from raising my son. I bounced around from Airbnb to Airbnb for months until I finally rented a tiny little house in Tucson now working at a job that I absolutely hate, living in town that is no longer mine and a tiny house that doesn't belong to me. Living on borrowed time. Where am I going, what am I doing, how am I getting there? I don't have an answer, but I do know that I have too much stuff. Physically, mentally and definitely, emotionally.

I think part of the problem is that I am not sure who I'm going to be once I get through this tunnel of grief and I don't know how long this tunnel lasts, I don't know what it looks like on the other side and I'm honestly not sure I ever want out of it.

And all of those things are hindering from me from making a decision about what to do with the stuff in my life.

But my journey has also made me painfully aware that when you're dead people need to deal with your stuff. And I don't want to do that to Ian.

I have not read Sense and Sensibility since I was in college. But I still have it.

I have some high end Scotch that Brian had from 7 yrs ago. I don’t drink.

I have the elementary school photos of my friends from school.

I have craft supplies and baking supplies from my life as a whole other person who gave a damn.

I have several bins of Christmas decorations that I haven’t even opened in 4 yrs.

And all this is covered in a layer of cat hair that if you know, you know.

And I just don’t care…

But the stuff is hindering me, I can feel it.

The dying potatoes on the counter. I’m not eating those.

The makeup that I never wear in a drawer. (Truly never did, but I might…)

The paper clutter that seems to multiply daily.

The lego set I am selling on Craigslist.

The pizza box from last week that requires I find the gate key to take it to the trash out back.

The pile of dead electronics by the door I mean to take to the appropriate recycling.

The containers of ashes of men I loved deeply on my bedside table covered in dust.

Everything is clutter.

Everything is expendable.

Everything is keeping me stuck.

Therefore, everything has to stay.

I can’t throw out my mindset, I can’t throw out my grief, I can’t throw out my sadness.

But maybe I can throw out the pizza box. Maybe