Walking the Last Mile

The garage is finished; however, I'll wait until I return home to enjoy the impact of empty space. There's been a lot on my mind lately, especially the knowledge that my years are dwindling to a precious few and so much of my past is detritus in boxes that I refuse to open. Once opened, the contents have to be handled, and, sometimes, that's not what I'm going to do. I'm not sure why B, my plumber-handyman felt that about me, but he did, and that's why he offered to open them for me. Well, that and the fact that the hour and a half we sat at the edge of the garage and discussed the project, my breathing became so impaired that it was obvious that I could not do the task myself!

A quote from a Nora Roberts' TRN, Tribute, sums up my feelings about dealing with the debris we all accumulate: Sentiment didn't magically restore rotten wood. I have a lot of rotten wood that needs to be discarded so I can restore the framework of my life and continue with the rest of the journey. There is just so much that lurks, that haunts me in the moments least expected. I know in one part of my brain that I should re-establish contact with my siblings, but I won't: even family members can cross a line that should never be crossed. I did the stop-look-listen before I took the first step off the curb when my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, I thought the street was safe to cross -- but I was run over by a semi just the same. The injuries weren't terminal, but I'm not going to put myself on that curb again. For those who believe that blood is thicker than water, I can honestly say that water is a hole hell of a lot more refreshing and restorative than bad family blood!

I have saved things beyond the point of reason. When my daughter married, I packed every single thing of hers I could find and shipped it to her: it was her turn to make the discard decisions. She laughed at some of what she received but appreciated the gesture. I did the same with my son, culling out that which was for him to care for once he established his own adult life. There was a miscommunication about some documents he thought I had discarded, but he did find them last summer when he packed for the relocation to Canada. I have kept just about 35 years' worth of teaching materials, good lessons and supplemental materials that I cannot throw out on my own. I still have every single bank statement and canceled check from my entire adult life. Unbelievably, I still have all the letters my ex-husband wrote to me before we married in 1967!

Hopefully, I can put some of that into the past tense!

The boxes in my garage represented parts of my life I simply did not want to have to quantify, to assess and determine worth. B understood how torn I was, which is probably why it took me an hour and a half to talk through the process with him! In some ways, it was a relief when he said in a recent phone call that it was easy to see what needed to stay with me and what could be removed. And there were the pieces of rotted wood of no use to anyone: whether they were irreplaceable or not, they had to be discarded either by me or by the person helping me clean the garage.

Another quote from the same source: Neglect takes longer to damage than deliberation, but it does the job just as well. I have been neglectful; I have avoided digging into a sad time in my past, a time when I was living where I wanted to be, had new friends that were special to me, doing a job that I truly enjoyed. When it all fell apart and I felt compelled to return to my past, it was a long, sad journey back to where so much began and so much more ended. I have moved on in some ways, but in other ways -- I can close my eyes and be there again.

It's time for new decisions about where I am in life and where I want to be, not just physically, but in the other realms, the internal areas that make a difference in the quality of the day-to-day. I have about used up my time to waste, but sometimes, wasting time is the point. I've used the past several years to walk through the forest, but I've been standing where the path offers me a choice of which way I'm going to continue the journey. It's time to take the first step on another path, rather than waiting for someone to take my hand and make the decision for me.