My basement

[Guest TooSoon]

I need to go down in my basement today to try to find some paperwork to complete forms we are filling out to start the process of getting a visa for adp.  I am excited!  I am through the roof that we're finally moving forward and into the future that we've been working so hard for.  But the basement.  I don't want to sort through all of that stuff to find what I know is there (these documents....but where?! And what else will I find?).  Not conflicted in any way about the future (or the past for that matter) but I've managed not to go into my basement for more than like 5 minutes in an entire calendar year (not an exaggeration and really, there hasn't been much of a reason to be down there), and I'm struggling to find the fortitude to just lose this day down there sorting it out.  I no longer know what is even down there but I know it is  A LOT of stuff.  I reserved this day, one of M's last full school days, to do it.  I'm ok with it all but something tugs - it is like the final frontier that back room in my basement.  There's still a boat load of crap in this house and a yard sale can resolve that when the time comes but the back room in the basement is full of boxes I haven't opened since we moved here in 2010.  How did I describe it a few weeks ago, like once I sort through that room and complete the "what to keep, what to jettison" task, I feel like the credits should roll....

 

 

[Captains wife]

First of all I am so happy about the visa comment. That is very exciting and am very happy for you ! I too have a basement of stuff from my husband/marriage and I am determined (4 years on) to finally tackle whats down there this summer. I just cleaned out a bunch of moving boxes upstairs (from 2012) that had never been opened from our original move and going through his pics, papers etc was so tough...it felt surreal. But it also made me realize how far I have come from the early widow days and I hope it will do that for you. Just take one step at a time.....

[Guest TooSoon]

Thanks, CW!  It's been a long time coming, taking this step, and it still might be an even longer time coming if USCIS in PA decides not to be efficient but we're doing it.  So far the basement has yielded mostly burnt out light bulbs and I've had to navigate with a flashlight, trash I missed from last year's purge, a vintage encyclopedia set that is moldy and hundreds of letters that I wrote or people wrote me during the peripatetic life I lived from 1989 to 2003.  I'm not reading anything, just getting it out of the mold zone.  But there are other things: we used to hang a peace sign flag from our front porch.  I found it on its pole.  Time to go!  But a reminder.  And the baby clothes I boxed up, the high chair and tiny baby crib that was Scott's Mom's and which was not up to 2007 code so we bought a basket for her to sleep in inside of the little crib.  And thousands and thousands of photographs and slides that also need rescuing from the cool but mold conducive basement.  I'm not getting rid of any those; I guess I'll move them into the garage and sort.  Crikey, as adp would say!  All I wanted was a file that said "birth certificates."  I knew it was going to become a cluster!  Its all good though really. 

 

ETA: I just threw away two crates full of xerox copies of articles I needed for my PhD thesis, now outdated because everything is online.  That was liberating!

[Trying]

I'm also so happy to hear you and adp are making steps to be together!  Good luck weeding through everything in the basement.  I had to do so much of it last year when we moved and I know it isn't easy.  I am determined to not hold onto so much go forward but that is easier said than done.

[Guest TooSoon]

Thanks, Trying and CW!  I got through a ton of stuff - oddly, most boxes could be reduced to one or two things and the rest went.  It was both overwhelming and liberating in equal measure, though I'm nowhere near done!  I can do some more today but must be in work the rest of the week.  Yes, adp is finally going to be here next year.  He has a sabbatical and will move in with us in the fall and hopefully, with a year together in the same place, we can configure our permanent arrangement.  It is exciting, and it is time! 

[Guest TooSoon]

I'm back at it.  And I must admit I am finding it difficult to choose which pieces of my husband I will save for my daughter and which I will let go of.  It seems like a betrayal in some ways - editing his detritus  on my terms.  He was an artist and there is just so much, such personal and complex stuff.  I'm not wavering on my choices but it is weird.  I never imagined having to do something like this.  I know I won't remember what I threw away that my daughter never even knew existed but it is a strange, surreal experience.

[RobFTC]

The "stuff monster" has many heads and is a hard beast to deal with.  I'm glad you're winning.  Even more, I am glad for the reason that it prompting this exercise!  Strength!

 

Take care,

Rob T

[MrsDan]

Thanks, Trying and CW!  I got through a ton of stuff - oddly, most boxes could be reduced to one or two things and the rest went.  It was both overwhelming and liberating in equal measure, though I'm nowhere near done!  I can do some more today but must be in work the rest of the week.  Yes, adp is finally going to be here next year.  He has a sabbatical and will move in with us in the fall and hopefully, with a year together in the same place, we can configure our permanent arrangement.  It is exciting, and it is time!

 

"YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

[Guest TooSoon]

Thanks you all, my pals from the beginning; it has been a long, often happy and sometimes rough, road.  I've had a horrendous 24 hours (not worth going into) so I figured I'd just keep going with the basement.  Tonight brought many files of letters (that I once wrote to people who sent them back but I did not read, cannot read) and books - so many books that go back to when I was a child - books that mean a lot to me.  But then I opened a shoe box with our honey moon things from the trip we took to Croatia when I was pregnant with M - museum tickets and maps and guides and post cards.  I found a little water color and a photo of us; I saved those and the post cards and the rest I threw away. I'm starting to get a little wigged out but I know it has to be done.  There is another shoe box beside me.  I know what is in it; the very first trip we ever took together - out west.  We were broke.  Virtually the same trip we're taking this summer with the girls.  And it both seems like yesterday and light years away and I am comforted to know we are going back again with the girls; full circle.  So odd.  It is all so odd.  Not bad just odd.  I am thankful for this place where people will know what I mean when I say that it is just odd. 

 

ETA: it wasn't the trip to the west box; it was another box from the Balkans.  This seems like it is going to be never ending encounter with the past.  Like I said, it's not bad.  It's just weird.  I wish I knew how to post a picture of the books piled up in front of me on the kitchen table.  If it wasn't midnight, I might start reading them again.