Day 108

I'm beginning to address my hoarding issues. I'm not as bad as the people on TV, but everything the interventionists talk about with the hoarders, I see in me. It's difficult to throw out anything that's been given to me, or that I've purchased for some future purpose. The two worst offenders are (one) the countless sentimental items that I've accumulated over the years given to me by important people in my life, and (two) "craft stuff."

Let me address the "craft stuff" first. You'll see on TV how these people have countless bags--unopened bags--of all this stuff that they've compulsively bought because perhaps they have a hobby and felt that they needed it, and it must be purchased because it was a good deal and on sale. I am notorious for going to, dare I speak the M word, Michael's, and walking up and down the scrapbooking isles (which after my cake decorating classes now recently include cake decorating isles) looking for sale items or something pretty that I will need later. I'll pack the cart-over dramatic-I'll load the cart with these items that I can't stand to be apart from because it excites me of all the creations I can make. Then I see that I'm potentially about to spend hundreds of dollars that we don't have, so I take an exaggerated amount of time deciding what stays and what can go and put away most of my cart ending up only having spent a hundred dollars, and I feel accomplished like not only do I have these amazing bargains, but I also had enough restraint to not spend as much as I wanted, and so it's some sort of reward that I get to buy these few items because it's better than not buying half the store. Luckily I've realized this tiny little flaw in myself and the occurrence of my shopping trips have expertly decreased to maybe once every two months versus once every two weeks. Even at the minimum I can say right now that it's not ever really in our budget, but once I'm there it becomes an exception to the rule because I'd never be able get that certain item at that fine price if I don't get it now. I could say with confidence that this is no longer a financial problem that I can't control, but the residual stuff that I've accumulated that's suffocating the space in my house, is a problem. There's nowhere for it to go! So it sits in bags, not being used, not fulfilling it's destiny.

The most asinine thing about this whole collecting of craft stuff is that I have not made one single scrapbook page for myself with any of my thousands of dollars of supplies. I have made countless birthday cards, not to brag but in my opinion--beautiful cards, but the purpose of this stuff was to consolidate all the pictures and scrapbookable items I have so I have a wonderful place for all my most precious memories, so they're not just strewn about haphazardly in another pile, sitting right next to the bag pile of craft stuff. This hurts me to the core that my memories could be depleting and I haven't saved them in time.

Going back to hanging on to those precious, sentimental items I've been given from important people in my life...Here the worst offenders are the countless pieces of jewellery, knick knacks, and gifts either my mother owned, or she gave to me. The very fact that she touched them makes me so attached to these pieces that I would be the worst person in the world to ever part with them or so I believe.

Mom was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer at the age of 44. I was 10 or 11 at the time. She was my everything and she was dying. As I read books or watch movies depicting the last years and months of a cancer victim, I see how weak and how much pain that person goes through. My 10 or 11 year old heart didn't see her struggle and my adult brain cannot prove to myself that it did happen. But nursing school and common sense tells me that it did. I do remember her last week. How vividly do I remember the night she passed, my now 13 year old purposefully induced insomnia sitting up with her all night, colouring a colouring book she promised we'd colour together but never did. We did mom. I coloured for both of us. I was with you at breath 100, 99, 98, 97...

So throughout her struggle to live these last years, instead of doing things she'd never done, going on far away trips (she did make it to her favourite place, La Jolla, a couple of times) what she did was spent her time making lists and preparing these things on her lists, lists of things she needed to prepare for us, her 5 children, before she passed. My mother died when I was 13 years old, entering grade 8, and this is what she prepared for me:
The night of her passing I received a teddy bear with a picture of us and on the back it read something like 'you cannot see or hear me, but teddy and I can see and hear you so give teddy a hug when you're feeling blue and I'll be with you'.
She left a Christmas present for the first Christmas without her.
I received gifts from her on graduating Jr. High school, my 16th birthday, my 18th birthday, high school graduation, my wedding, and I have yet to open gifts for my first child. Each gift came with a card with something written and signed by her.
She spent all her time doing this for me, and my 4 other siblings. She was dying and all she could think about was us.

How do you throw away, just the very phrase "throw away," seems so demeaning--how do you throw away those gifts? How do you throw out all the little figurines she loved to buy me because at one point I was into monkeys and she had to buy me a set of monkeys for my night stand? How do I part with these memories? How do you throw out a broken and useless nativity scene that she bought and we used to put up every Christmas for as long as I remember? How do you fix your own life and get rid of the clutter while not dishonouring a dying woman's last days of picking those things out for you instead of caring for herself? She gave me a hope chest and it's overflowing with these things. These are things I will never wear, and never want to display, but they're things that when I take them out of the darkness, I get to remember how much my mother loved me. But there's so much.

There's so much because I can't decided what gets to stay and what gets to go when you add all the things to this that remind me of Dad. Now Dad was opposite and didn't give gifts very often (I'm talking one gift, maybe once a year) because he didn't believe in spending the money for all this stuff you don't absolutely need. How it worked between them is beyond me. So what I have collected from my dad is mostly paperwork with his name on it: old passports, receipts, poems and letters he wrote, membership cards and driver's licences, lists he made. Because I didn't know much about him, about what made him tick, I have all these things that I can pretend give me a clearer picture of who my dad was on the inside, aside from the abusive alcoholic I grew up with. I have boxes of this stuff.

Then there's little things that take up room because they're delicate. I have a dried lily my littlest brother gave to me on my high school graduation. That was very uncharacteristic of him and one of 3 gifts I have ever received from him. I have a dried rose that my second oldest brother gave me when I pretended I was pregnant in high school for attention and I told him and he was there to support me. I have a fabric bracelet that my oldest brother gave to me when he was on leave from the CCC, or the air force, or jail-I can't remember. 'But he gave it to me and I held onto it. I hold on to things that remind me of my life because it seems everyone in my life leaves.

So how do you part with this stuff? Do I part with this stuff? How do I decide what stays and what goes? This is why it takes me 4 hours to sort through one box, and then have a tickled bag of trash scraps at the end that could easily be mistaken for untouched.

The dilemma is that I want a simple life and I don't want any of this stuff that's creating clutter! I crave clean lines and lightly decorated shelves. I want space to breathe, to think, to move within my own, present, life. I want to feel like I have room to scrapbook instead of walking all over boxes. I want to have a memory, a nostalgic smile, but not every time I open a box forced to relive my life for the next 8 hours shuffling through everything.

I think I know I have to throw out some stuff. It's just deciding what stuff that gives me the anxiety, fear, and subsequent procrastination. sigh

Meals
6 buttermilk pancakes
3 tsp becel margarine
1/4 cup blueberry syrup
1 cup of milk

1 steak and cheddar Lean Cuisine panini
1/2 cup skim cottage cheese
2 cups of water

2 cups of water

1 can of A&W cream soda
2 pieces cheese pizza stuffed crust Pizza Hut
2 pieces pep & mush thin crust
4 cups of water

1/4 piece frozen chocolate cream pie
2 cups of water

Exercise
None

Notes:
-I'm currently cleaning the house room by room in preparation to paint in order to sell our house. I'm also trying to finish up 2 correspondence courses. Here are my excuses for my bad microwaving/fast food diet and non-existent exercise for the last two days. It's just for a few days. I just need the house clean for entertaining over the weekend, then I'll push in some time for myself. I just literally do not have one more minute to fit anything else in. Is that a good excuse for treating my body like crap? No. I feel guilty about it, but I'm not prepared to do anything about it or else my stress with skyrocket. I have to pick my battles and right now, this is not one to dwell on and cry about. I don't have time today. I know that it's only for a few days. I know it's not forever. I know I'm not developing a "bad habit." But as I try to break one, sometimes less than desirable has to be the default.