A Mourner’s Guilt October 18, 2009

Little Guy and I are at the old house today.  Housesitting ended, and we don’t have anywhere else to go without imposing on anyone.  We took a walk in the neighborhood.  Little Guy started talking about the day that his daddy went to the woods and died.  He seemed hurt by the fact that his dad had gone for a walk without him that morning.  Little Guy had tried to go with him, but Ex told him, “Go back inside.”  He did.

I asked Little Guy if he had watched him from the window in the house, but he said, “no.”

I asked Little Guy if he started playing with Legos when he went back inside because that was what he was doing when I picked him up.  He said, “no.”  

I asked Little Guy if his daddy had made him breakfast that morning.  He said, “yes.”

I asked Little Guy if his daddy had told him that I was going to pick him up that morning.  He misunderstood me and said, “Nope, my dad didn’t say he was going to pick me up again.”

I so wanted to find out what happened that morning, but I know I’ll have to wait until Little Guy is older before I find out more of the story.  

I remember packing Little Guy up in the car that morning when I had finally gotten him dressed about an hour after I arrived.  Ex still hadn’t shown up.  I remember thinking, ‘Ex is out there, dead or alive, he’s nearby.’  I told Little Guy to holler out to him before we left, in case Ex could hear him.  He hollered and got no response.  I half wanted to go and look for him right then, and I half wanted to just get the hell out of there and get Little Guy to a safe place so I could come back and find Ex.  I picked the second option.

I wonder what would have happened if I had chosen the first, going to look for him right then, when he was probably still alive, according to the Coroner’s report.  He was sitting there in the woods waiting for us to leave, waiting to know that he was alone and Little Guy was safe.  What would Ex have done?  Would he have pulled the trigger if I approached him?  Would he have let me talk him out of it and gotten in my car and let me take him somewhere he would be safe and maybe still alive now?  Would he have pulled the trigger on me?  I doubt it.  What would I have done if I had found Ex dead while I still had Little Guy with me?  That would have been AWFUL!  What a terrible, nightmarish memory that would have made for Little Guy.  

I know that it’s not my fault, any of it, and that I’m not responsible for his death.  It was his choice.  I guess I’m not done what-if’ing when I shouldn’t.  I can’t change the past.  I can only accept it and make the most of the present.  

Last night’s Yogi Tea fortune read, “Those who live in the past limit their future.”  I couldn’t help but think about Ex first.  He spent so much time living in his past and trying to overcome it.  Then, I turned my thoughts on myself and prayed silently to the stars that I would overcome this event and feel normal again, soon.

Folding Laundry and Moving On August 24, 2009

While putting away my clean basket of socks and underwear, I found a long, white, man’s sock.  

Shit.  Really?  I thought to myself.  Boy, I move fast and don’t do laundry very often.

It has been 10 days since I broke up with Ex-boyfriend.  It’s been 20 days since I last saw him.  I haven’t washed socks in 20+ days.   And there they were.  His socks.  When I saw them in my hamper 20 days ago, I remember him saying, “Could you please wash them for me?”

I growled and agreed.

I swear it looks like they’re staring at me from my bedspread, limp and reminding me that he probably wants his socks and a couple CDs back.  I want my bathrobe and lotion back.  AND MY COFFEE GRINDER!  I just remembered.  Shit, shit, shit.  I’ve been using my roommate’s, but we won’t live together forever….I don’t think.  

Well, that lit a fire under my ass to return each other’s items.

Pack Rat October 28, 2008

Hello, my name is Jenniphur, and I am a pack rat and daughter of two pack rats whose parents were also pack rats.  I married a pack rat, and the pack rat future for my son looks bright.  

I was at a friend’s house over the weekend who has a collection of broken sunglasses.  I opened my mouth and expressed that the sunglasses would better serve the rest of their life in a landfill, since all but one pair lies lenseless or in other states of disrepair.  I learned that the sunglasses will be saved for future use in an art project.  

Okay, viable logic, I thought.  I have said that SO many times in my life.  It didn’t occur to me then, but using broken items for art seems a greener way to go than throwing things in a landfill.  In a feng shui sense, I always vote to get rid of stuff in the fastest manner possible.  I can always get something back if I need it, either from the thrift store where I donated it or from friends who have their own collections of broken stuff.  

That conversation reminded me of all the crap that I have saved for various reasons and all of the crap treasured items my mom has saved.  For example, my mom has kept a knitting project that my aunt gave her when she was still married to my dad…and that was over 25 years ago.  My mom claimed that she kept it because of the high-quality yarn.  

My aunt’s dead now, 10 years this month, one of the world’s biggest losses when that happened.  I wondered how much that fact played in my mom’s decision to keep the yarn even longer.  I have felt over-sentimental about the things that I have received from people in my life that I loved who have since died, especially from my aunt.  I didn’t know a person who didn’t like her, but perhaps I have rose-tinted glasses on.  

In true pack rat spirit, passed from generation to generation, I have saved several pair of jeans for my mom to use.  She has talked about making a denim, patchwork quilt or blanket for probably 15 years now, if not longer.  I thought I would help her by saving my fabric for her and have since kept every, ratty pair of jeans since 1994.  I keep them upstairs in my closet in a suitcase, along with a bunch of other worn out, perfectly good for sewing project items.  

Now, I tell myself that I’ll make projects out of the the stuff.  AND I DON’T EVEN SEW!  I can sew, but I have no patience or interest for it.  It’s like knitting.  That project that my mom has kept for so long from my aunt, she gave it to me to do after she taught me how to knit for the fifth time.  After keeping it for 3 or 4 years and not doing anything with it but storing it under my bed, I gave it back to her this past July when she visited.  I was never going to do a knitting project, even if my aunt had owned it at one time.  

I’m working in my home office today, cleaning it up and organizing and putting away.  Every time I do this, I find more stuff that I should have just gotten rid of upon finding it the first time, rather than stuffing it in a bag to deal with later.  It’s not that I don’t think that I can move forward with things from my past.  It’s that I don’t want static chi in my home.  If I have to say, “Oh, yeah…that,” it’s time to make decisions about what I cram my corners with, and yarn or a pink stuffed bunny that my aunt made aren’t what I prefer.  I allow myself to keep one item from each past relationship, and it has to trigger positive memories.  

It may have been one of the world’s biggest losses when my aunt died.  On the flip side, her life represented one of the world’s greatest gains that she could share her creativity with the people in her life.  She inspires me to share my creativity and laugh a lot and love many and show it, and that means more than any ball of yarn could.