Stuff, stuff, stuff

I feel the need to post something here. I don't really know what. There is a lot that I could say and perhaps need to say but it just seems like I don't have the extra energy or space in my life to sit and compose a post. Most days I wake up with a weariness. I come out of dreams about stuff. Giving stuff away, losing stuff, matching parts of stuff with other stuff. My days have mostly been spent doing the same thing in my waking hours.

I knew it would be a big job to go through my Mother's house. I stayed in denial about it until I was actually faced with the reality of the job. My sister and I have really kept at it and little by little done the job. We first had to sort it all out, then decide where it all goes, then pack it up. I wish I could say we are at the end of it all. I can see how far we've come and it's easier to see that we are getting close to the end of the job.

This is the part that is perhaps the most difficult. The tedium sets in. We get fussy and tired and snappish in our tone. We just want to be done and yet it only goes as fast as it goes. After sorting through it all it becomes really easy to begin to forget what I really loved about my Mom. All these things she refused to decide about and now we have to decide --they begin to have an impact on my ability to remember her.

Meanwhile, my life and my sister's must go on. There are things too numerous to name to attend to and not lose track of while we clear out the stuff of Mom's. I am in awe of anyone who has had to do this kind of job. I am working hard in my mind not to become a victim. I let Sonia Choquette remind me with her phrase "Bless your mess" I am in this situation because of my choices. I do not resent my brothers because their own choices have taken them far away. What a creation my life is right now................

I will however hop up on my soapbox right now and say if you have siblings who have cleared your parents estates and you have not had to do the job then you need to thank them and acknowledge the time it took to do it. My brothers have said thank you and the brother I am closer to has made it very clear how grateful he is for my work and my sister's work. It helps.

I fight the urge daily to just run away, to start whining , to become a victim, to begin to resent the lives of other's who go on without this huge job absorbing every last nook and cranny of their own life. I don't think I truly knew what this job is like until I was in the thick of it and it makes me all the more aware that anyone - including my own mother, my own dad, my brothers - that anyone who escapes this fate of having to get rid of another person material life is very lucky.

As you can read I fight the urge to have a pity party. There are worse things to have to struggle with in life than this and there are blessings to be found in it too. So onward I go to bless my mess.........