It’s not just the schlepping of so much stuff from one place to another, and the ensuing chaos (although that really, really does suck).
It’s that moving always (this time especially so) creates in me an overwhelming feeling of failure. (Don’t worry. Poop will be mentioned in this post).
The type of organized, clutter-free, bandana-wearing mover I will never be.
I had a full month to get ready for this move.
And I did try to donate several things to the Salvation Army, and to take small loads one-by-one from my place in Illinois to my husband’s in Iowa.
But come move-out day, the process of packing–or, more truthfully, the “process” of “shoving all of my s#$% in its current disorganized state into un-labeled tubs at the very last possible moment”–becomes a forced intervention. It’s been this way each time I’ve moved from one place to the next, even though I swear I’ll do better next time: friends and family who got suckered into helping discover that the boxes they agreed to help load into the truck or van are actually not…um…packed.
I can see now (about two weeks post-move) why I put off packing. It’s because having to physically deal with all of my crap means having to face up to a lifetime’s worth of failure.
In other words, schlepping multiple plastic tubs of stickers, fancy cardstock paper, and glitter glue forces me to admit how many evenings–how many weeks, months, years now–I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to do something constructive while watching TV, not just sitting there eating junk food.
As I boxed it all up this time to give it away, I sighed in defeat.
I am, and will never be, a person who uses glitter glue. I will never make anything with scraps of pretty ribbon. (I will, however, have dropped enough loose popcorn kernels to have planted a field between the sofa cushions.)
And this is not to mention the decades worth of unorganized photos I’ve been meaning to transform into a beautifully chronologized scrapbook of my youth.
As I sat in a circle of shoeboxes stuffed with sentimental crap, I had to admit to myself that it’s just never going to happen. (And so it’s the world’s loss that the Spring 1995 State Pep Band Showcase won’t be preserved for all time after all.)
But, worse than this, dealing with all of my tangible stuff forces me to face another ugly truth:
I’ve got some things in common with those people on that show who live amongst excrement.
(Although, at least unlike this one poor guy they featured, ["Steven"], the poop is not my own).
Here are three reasons why:
1. I keep useless stuff, like empty glass bottles, because I truly believe I’m going to find use for them someday. (Real Simple.com, you and your “New Uses for Old Stuff” column are nothing but evil, evil enablers).
2. The idea of wasting things–like the perfectly good bottle of Tobasco sauce I threw in the trash this morning at my husband’s insistence (because neither of us like it, but which probably cost a whole $3 when I bought it to use one teardrop of in a recipe)–causes me sincere anxiety.
(Sometimes I try to defend this anxiety by saying it comes from my grandma’s family having been so poor during the Great Depression, they had to live in the chicken coop at one point, [after their home caught fire]. But seriously, that was my grandma, not one of my parents or even me. And it’s an effing bottle of Tobasco sauce. If our own home catches fire one day, Chris and I will not be saved from poverty by holding on to T-shirts from my college days or food products we didn’t use up completely. (, we don’t even have a chicken coop.)
But worst of all, like those people on that television show,
3. I (a person who thinks she is so self-aware, she makes fun of other people for not noticing their own denial), have been guilty of living in denial.
warning signs, perhaps?
Here’s a little bit more on that last one.
On the night before my third and final schlepping trip involved in this move, my husband and I were at his parents’ house mooching off their laundry facilities (and cable) when we landed upon an episode of Hoarders (and, perhaps as Chris’s attempt to send me a message, he kept it on that channel).
In this episode, a man had dozens of cats taken from his home–several of them alive but sickly, and several more, it is revealed (after animal-control people raid his home), have been rotting away dead in the ceilings and rafters.
The shrink on the show, noting how blind the guy seemed to have been to his situation, just kind of shrugged.
“This had just become ‘normal’ for him,” she said.
The animal-control people on the show, and the people in the room with me (Chris), announced their disgust (rightfully) with this supposedly-cat-loving man, scolding him for his neglect.
But at least twice, I said out loud, “I feel sorry for the guy.”
But what I didn’t say aloud was that–in at least some small way–I am this guy.
Now, it might be true that when we had moved all my crap earlier that day, it was just regular old dust and shedded cat hair that covered most of my possessions, (as opposed to actual dead cats).
And when I had to give away my kitty to a family friend before the move, I think she (the cat) was in perfectly healthy condition. (“Think,” because I hadn’t taken her to the vet since…ever. Okay, procrastination will be covered in a separate post. Later.)
But, would a healthy person who keeps her home orderly and in control ever have to admit this? :
A couple of years ago, I found a small turd–produced by an unidentified source–on the middle of the floor in my house. And after a few seconds of concern, I scooped it up, threw it in the trash, and then pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
My brain, at this time, recognized the factual information that something or someone had pooped in my house, and that the thing was not the cat.
Appropriate action(s):
- call Animal Control?
- call a friend or family member to help search the house to locate source of said feces?
- go to store and purchase live trap?
Good news: any of these answers qualify as correct.
And yet.
Reasons appropriate actions were not taken:
- wasn’t sure if the impoverished Illinois county I lived in even had Animal Control.
- family members lived out of town; friends in the area were busy putting kids to bed.
- probably also had graduate paper to write or entire novel to read by next day.
- no local store at which to purchase said trap (nor money with which to purchase it)
Consequences:
- Being greeted unexpectedly–a full day or two later–by a live, mid-sized possum in my living room. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, when I was sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching True Blood.
Imagine the look on my face, (and the noises I made), as I bounced and scampered across the room, alternately trying to get a look at the thing (to make sure it was still there/that I was not hallucinating) and to get the hell away from it.
Imagine the sound of my voice when I called my landlord– and then, when he wasn’t home, my friend Emily, who had to talk me down and try to convince me to throw a laundry basket over the vile thing (which, by this point, was eating out of the cat’s bowl).
(The landlord, eventually, came over with a broom and got the possum outside. He did not, however, do anything to make sure the house was properly protected from future animal intrusions, meaning this would not be the last visit from a woodland creature to my living room.)
The moral of this story is that, thankfully, while I was not actually hoarding possums (oh God, please don’t let that be a future episode on TLC), I can relate to feeling so overwhelmed, and so unable to solve problems, that the problems themselves–ranging from too much clutter, to inertia and stuck-ness and helplessness in the face of being alone–just become the “normal.”
The other moral is that if you find an unidentified turd on your carpeted stairs and you don’t actually do anything about it, it’s probably time to–among other things–let go of the crafting materials you’re not using. (Do you really think Martha Stewart, for one, would live among opossum?)
Tags: animals, anxiety, cat, cleaning, clutter, column, decluttering, denial, depression, essay, hoarding, home, Illinois, inertia, Iowa, marriage, memoir, mental health, moving, organization, self-improvement, trash, TV
as much as I hate this abbreviation, I truly LOL.
I hate it, too, unless it applies to a reader commenting on something I wrote.