Blindsided by all the suck.
I was not expecting that. I was not expecting the emotional tornado that tossed me all over a despairing landscape just to accomplish an estate sale.
Out of all the dementia I've been through why sorting my parents possessions tore a new hole in my heart is beyond me. I thought when I wrote about slogging through the preparations in May (I See Dead People's... things.) the act of processing would clear my head, help me cowgirl up and accomplish the task. It did not. I became more and more of a zombie as the sale grew near, moving through a house torn apart in preparation for a "Friday/Saturday Only!" hicknik form of capitalism.
It was also hotter 'n hell that weekend; 116 degree temperature doesn't exactly soothe an oppressed heart, and yet people showed up and walked out with our family history.
Having hired a company to do the actual sale, I mostly hid downstairs in air-conditioning for two days, but couldn't resist occasionally poking my head out into the inferno to see what was happening. At times I'd watch a customer be utterly thrilled with what they found - that lightened my unshakeable gloom.
Other times I'd watch an item be hauled away, treasured family memories in tow, looking back in a panic as if to say "Are you sure? Are you positively sure? I thought we had a good thing going for the last 40+ years."
Strangers leaving with the sofa that The Other Girl and I used to watch
Saturday morning cartoons on, kicking out viciously should our
legs or feet accidentally touch. With her long legs I rarely won a battle.
Why a sofa, reminiscent of so much childhood carnage, should drive me to tears as it was loaded up and hauled away is a mystery. I spent the rest of the sale cowering in the cool of the basement.
And then it was over.
The people were gone. The stuff was gone. The upstairs no longer held ghosts of the past. It was ready to be remade; to honor what came before it while firmly planting itself in the present.
It took me awhile to feel comfortable upstairs again. My motivation to do so was the fact that the kitchen resides above our heads and I am quite fond of eating. (Nom, nom, nom!) And I do feel a little lighter, a little freer now that I am much less possession-encumbered, and only a little remorseful at what was (purposefully) lost. Of course, creating Wine, Women, and Dementia is an excellent diversion to pull me back into the future, coaxing me to abandon my perch in the past.
I was blindsided by all the suck, but now that I'm on the other side of the tornado, I'm managing to do okay.
P. S. And during all this upheaval The Boyfriend in the Basement celebrated a birthday! We showed our ID and vax cards at the door and had a lovely time on a much-missed patio with a few of our favorite folks!
Happy Birthday, TBitB!
Step by step. It's all you can do and you came out through to the other side.