A couple days ago I had enough energy to do some cleaning in the basement. Oh that dark hole in the ground that I almost never enter for various reasons. It holds many things; some of which include my memories in print as well as items. The reason for the clean out; I figured it would be easier if I separated my husbands belongings in one area of the basement, and mine in another. That way we could much more easily access what we wanted.This kind of cleaning and reorganizing is bittersweet. I am the spouse who doesn’t just like but needs order. Everything has a place and when something is not in that place my anxiety rises. I don’t do well in anything remotely resembling chaos when it comes to possessions. So, in walking down the steps to our dungeon I knew it may be hard in some ways but when it was all said and done, I’d be happy. I’d feel a burden lift. And lifting it certainly did; but in ways I didn’t expect.
If you have a space like this you share with another human being you may somewhat understand what an undertaking like this can be like. Digging through piles of paperwork, keepsakes, and in this case video game equipment, old computers, old college books and homework, and shared items, One of my first thoughts was, “why did I ever think after we got married it was a good idea to combine his belongings in with mine?” So down in that dark dungeon I sat on a chair for a couple hours per day going through high school awards, church certificates, mortgage paperwork, birth certificates, pictures from my past, from his, and from ours. It was glorious when a tote was just his or just mine. It made the sorting process so much easier!
Isn’t it funny how an item from my past can conjure up so many thoughts and feelings. Feelings I thought were dead. And diaries…oh the entries in my diaries. I wrote in most of the diaries I had packed away when I was in my teen years. Now as a mother of an adult, a teenager and two elementary aged children I stare in shock at some of the things I wrote. While sitting in that chair with a keep pile on one side and a trash bag staying upright between my legs, this swiftly went into the trash bag. Let me back up a bit. There was no profanity, nothing evil. Just a teenage girl desperately longing for love and finding it in all the wrong places - young men. Back to putting it in the trash bag…I did take a few seconds to ponder, “maybe my children will want to see these someday”, or for some reason “maybe someone will want to know my life story and these entries certainly contain part of it.” As soon as that entered my mind was another thought quickly following; “nope, nobody needs to see this. It won’t bring glory to God and as much as I sometimes want to live in this past I cannot. This time is over and done. For better or worse this is where I am now and no amount of reminiscing is going to change that.”
Next I came across notes mostly from my mother. Apology letters for when she had been a little more “human”, birthday cards, encouragement cards. As a teen I really struggled with feeling loved by anyone. Certain things during that time was so very difficult - at school, with my parents, and my sibling…but, when I look at those letters I want to go back to when things seemed so much more simple. And here we are in reality. The place you and I are in now is sometimes hard, and in some ways it’s easier. Some ways it’s more chaotic and some ways it’s more serene. Still, the memories I want to keep are these. My dad carrying me upstairs to my room to put me to bed when I had fallen asleep on the main floor. Even when I was a teen I’d sometimes fake sleeping only to find myself really falling asleep and yet there he was carrying me up those old, creaky stairs, laying me on the bed and covering me up. My mom outside with me when I was the only child in a small little swimming pool. The puppies and kittens I got to cuddle when whatever animal we had at the time had wee babies. My youngest brother Nathan giving me big hugs, and telling me how much he loved me. The middle brother making me laugh till my sides hurt. Visits with Grandma Good where she made sure to spend a lot of quality time with just me. Reading to me, recording me, teaching me, praying with me, and sewing dresses for my Allysha doll. Spending time with my cousin Meredith at my grandma’s house making mud and sawdust cakes. Grandma even let us walk through the gardens with her and pick some pretty flowers to decorate our cakes. So, tonight as I was feeling nostalgic I made fried potatoes and onions with cream corn. As the potatoes sizzled away in the oil and butter I was able to smell that all familiar aroma of times long past. It was after all something my dad would make. I took a bite and savored not just the morsels of food I was putting in my mouth, but also the memories of a time long gone, but not forgotten.
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