For a long time I've known that I have an attachment to things.
Now, I won't necessarily call this an unhealthy attachment, although sometimes it's borderline when I break something one of my best good friends has given me and I cry and mourn it like someone is hospitalized. I curse myself, but I eventually heal. Then I place the beautiful shattered remains of the candle shade in a freezer bag for a year and a half and tell myself I'm going to make a plastered stepping stone out of the pieces.
Yeah. They're in my bathroom closet.
But things fill a void in my life so my brain doesn't have to work too hard to make connections. I think I like being surrounded by them, these things and whatever they represent: emotions; people; lessons; facets of myself or others.
How much comfort can one 29-year-old woman get from sleeping with a Made-In-China blue crocodile she won in a claw machine the first time she and her boyfriend took her son to Billy Bob's Wonderland. I wake up enough to search for it after I've dropped it under the bed when Fisher's staying at his dad's. When I think really hard about it, it also reminds me that I shouldn't have dropped over five dollars in that quarter machine trying to get it to push that roll over the edge for me. I really thought I had it. That's mostly my gambling record for the year though.
And he named him Croc-Go. How cute is that? Almost as cute as his name for a Frisbee. He calls it an air beef. HA! I cannot get over that. Make a kid say air beef, and you'll see what I mean.
I have a dried rose above my kitchen sink and a shrinking bouquet of daisies on the table that remind me of how hard Nicholas works to show me he loves me. Such grand efforts cloaked in simple tasks. They stare back at me and remind me that I'll just have to find something else to bitch about. Or, more often, that I should just shut the Hell up and appreciate him like mad because he's amazing.
When I water my patio plants with the glass pitcher which belonged to his ex-girlfriend's grandmother, I remember that my grandmother's useful things, such as her silver serving tray bowling trophy from the first year I was born, mean more to me than designer bullshit. I cherish the pitcher; I cherish Nick. Because and although she did not.
I wear jewelry that my family and friends give me and feel their love and strength. If it's a hard day, I'm wearing jewelry probably. Unless I'm going to the DHHR. That's just tacky (oh, and I quit smoking a year and a half ago, but I must say it's tacky to smoke in front of the building where you go to ask people for money too; that's something I refused to do).
Ask me who I'm wearing and your answer won't be any famous fashion guru. It'll be Fisher, Nick, Erin(s), Jessie, Emily, Mom, Dad & Susie, Cliff or one of my other awesome people I love.
I wear Nick's clothes when he's not around and I'm missing him. If you're reading this: I'm really so sorry for the stains and appreciative of you pretending you never notice them, love. One day I'll be able to wear Fisher's clothes and I fear he won't be so forgiving. But mom has much practice in the woman wizardry that is stealing male clothing for her own use. I will prevail. It makes me wonder what college shirts I'll be sporting...
These things surround me everyday, and there are many things and people that I love and appreciate that I haven't mentioned here. I have these souvenirs of life lining shelves in my house and in my heart.
I know I can't take things with me when I die. And I don't want to end up on Hoarders so it's evident that I learn to let go of certain things. I have to learn everything they hold before I let them go, or have something to replace them.
I don't know what will happen to the lessons when I'm gone, but I hope that I can pass them along in teaching, giving, and wisdom the best that I am able.
When someone I knew was slipping dangerously toward "hoarder" status my advice to her was "take a photo of that item and then get it out of here". Obviously you wouldn't want to cuddle a photo of a stuffed crocodile, but this would work for many things. As for that globe...make the damn stepping stone! You could even put it in a baby handprint kit or mosaic kit from a craft store. Easy peasy. AND you could have Fisher help. So there is a double whammy of getting things done, crafts and family time.
ReplyDeleteI sure do like the way you think. That's why I wear you often ;) And hahaha, I was thinking of photographing that damned birdhouse that I bought nearly 20 years ago for my step-dad. It always broke my heart that he left it behind when he went to live with that other woman. Now, I've completely disowned him (with the exception of changing my last name) but I continue to hang on to the birdhouse even though I memorialized it in a poem I wrote in middle school. I was looking at it this morning and thinking of this blog and thinking maybe it was time to just let it go. It reminds me of the pain of the abandonment and that people aren't always what they seem, but do I really physically need it? When I thought of taking a pic, I figured that sort of thing could go without because a picture would still be holding onto that. I don't know really what I'd rather do with it...maybe we'll decide when you're here.
ReplyDeleteStepping stone needs to be made. Fo' sho.