The Stuff of Life

I have way too many things to do, and too much stuff in my life. This is a recurring theme. Getting rid of things, sorting through things, taking on too much. I’ve had times in my life when I wasn’t so overwhelmed, windows of calm, and then it seems the wind picks up and I’m caught up in it and life takes me into the eye of the storm, where it seems safe, but it’s not.

My ex used to listen to a radio talk show, where this guy would give advice, mainly to other guys, and he’d call them ‘my friend’ and say things like if you got in debt, then get a second job, and I think I believe some of this stuff, thinking that if I just keep working harder and harder I will get to a place where things straighten out, where life will be easier, more like I remember from the past.

So, I try harder and harder and get farther away from where I want to be. What’s up with that? I don’t want my future to be only like the good memories from the past, that seems weird, at best. And of course, when the past was the present, it wasn’t necessarily perfect, our minds just do that to us.

This is today. My bedroom is a mess. I need to sort through summer and winter clothes. I’m going to try to move my bed around yet again, to try to find a spot that seems more like it works. My oldest daughter Kathleen will be here with her two boys a little after noon, and I will drive her to dance lessons downtown, and hang out with Max and Elliot, my grandsons. I will pick Kathleen up at 3, stop home so we can take separate cars and drive to visit my mom in Waconia.

Friday, my mom called to tell me that my brother Steve, who has bone and lung cancer is in the hospital with pneumonia. I am grieving. I went to class yesterday just trying not to cry, naproxin in my purse, in case of a headache. I’m scared of the way that grieving takes over your life, makes you stupid, and I’m a bit shocked at my lack of compassion for myself. I meditated this morning. I just want someone to hold me.

This is this week, I have lots of homework to do for the second MA degree that I’m pursuing. I finished a class in neuroscience and couples therapy and now I’m taking an art therapy II class, which is uncannily too much like art therapy I; which reminds me of why I’m studying neuroscience.

My finances are a mess, so much so that I just want to ignore them. I had an old boyfriend who just put all his bills in a drawer and left them there. Totally, just left them there. This is one way to deal with this I guess. Then there was my dad, who had my mom write down on a check register that they kept in the car glove box, every time they bought gas and what the mileage was. Keeping track I guess. I am not really one to keep track on that level.

Maybe that’s where I’m at right now. Keeping track, but keeping track of myself. Where I was, who I was, what I did well, what I want to do better. Remembering my older brother Steve, and how our family was back then. Maybe that’s why my bedroom, my money, my stuff seems like such a mess. I’m in that spot where I’m taking it all out of the garage, the basement, the attic, the stairways, and I’m sorting through it all. What good is it all? What do I keep, what do I throw away? Where am I going? What do I want? If I am stripped of all my stuff, and my caregiving role, who am I?

This was last week, a huge garage fire, not two blocks away. I drove right past it, saw the red hot flames, and suddenly I was 7, standing in front of our house in Franklin Park, Illinois, where we lived for a year and a half. Standing in front of our garage on fire. Standing there watching the flames eat up the new sandbox, and the new picnic table set that my dad had bought for us. They were still in the box, and when my dad had time, he was going to get them set up.

My older brother Pat, and his friends had been smoking behind the garage, it was years before anyone dared tell. I had been hanging out with them, ‘bugging them' just minutes before. Then we all went in to eat dinner. A neighbor boy ran right in our front door, without knocking, "Sorry to disturb your dinner, but your garage is on fire." Things were not so good for us in Illinois. We never got a new sandbox or picnic table, and we soon moved back to Minneapolis.