An Altered Perspective
The cleanout began on Friday at 10 a.m. I had staged the area with boxes, bags and positive energy which I knew I would need. As I stood and looked around what had been my lovely, large guest suite, it was jam packed with stuff. It was everywhere. As my eyes adjusted, I notice that the small closet was overflowing with boxes, clothes, sewing machine and who knew what else. The entire west wall filled with books, four bookcases and a number of altars. How many I would not know for a couple of hours. My own wailing wall.
Unkind and hideously judgmental thoughts filled my mind. Who lives like this? How can someone come into your home and just trash it this way? Look at the willy nilly stacking of boxes and crates and crap. Why am I left to clean up this mess? That was before I found my one-of-a-kind ceramic teapot unceremoniously crammed underneath the vanity sink. Nana was right, no good deed goes unpunished. Then I heard the all too familiar, “Now Heather”, voice take charge. It’s her entire life, this is all she has except for what is in that storage unit in Mount Shasta. You couldn’t fit your whole life into three rooms. Cut her some slack. It’s all she has. My helper walked in and stopped dead in her tracks. She knew I had clutter as she had helped me declutter before, but she had lived briefly in this room and the assault to her senses was palpable.
“What happened here? Where did this all come from?”
I grabbed the packing material and boxes and we began on the west wall. Three Quan Yin statues with their accompanying altar cloths and offerings. Four buddhas, a framed painting of the Virgin Mary and some Indian guru who I think was Sai Babba. Stones, feathers, beads, coins and other gifts. My Catholic helper wanted to just throw most of those away as they seemed to belong to things you would find in a child’s pockets after a day out in nature. I explained that they were important to the altar and we had to keep them all together. This slowed progress noticeably. She had double covered the TV with a Buddha cloth and an under layer of purple, which we all know is a high consciousness color, as its evil rays could not be tolerated in her space. I insisted that things from the desk be done and labeled in quadrants so that she could find them again if needed. Five hours and four SUV trips to the garage later we had finished a third of the room, but I thought all we had left was clothing and the bathroom. I would learn my folly the next day when my husband’s oldest daughter came to help me. That was only three hours and two SUV trips.
I wrestled constantly in my mind, what was mine to do? How could I be so cold hearted and unkind, after all, “it didn’t hurt me.” Luckily that phrase would snap me out of my fall down the co-dependent rabbit hole and I would be able to reassess my position. Recovering from a lifetime of rescuing, sliding under the jumpers to give them a soft landing and unknowingly being bullied by those that sought my help, I have no idea where the boundaries are located. I have described myself as boundaryless just like the Middle East before Gertrude Bell showed up and began drawing lines for England. Where were the edges?
After the Friday clean out, I texted the easier twin and asked if there was any news on when she would get out of rehab and where she was going. To temporary housing or did she have a solution? The sister-in-law had told us that she was going to live with an old roommate, but when questioned about in the next conversation reacted with an annoyed voice that, “No, she’s too difficult to live with.” One can only imagine what she must be like. Anyway, I was asking the daughter as I knew Saturday was pack up the clothes and four boxes of supplements day and I was willing to pack for my sister-in-law’s incremental movement rather than all in. I received a return test restating their boundaries, they would handle housing and any help I needed with packing decisions were mine to make with their mother if I chose. I wanted to reply, “Fuck you, strong letter to follow, “but instead said, “I need no help in making packing decision, I was simply trying to be thoughtful about your mother’s next phase. I’ll do the best I can.”
There was a text stating they might need help with Phoenix neighborhoods for Section 8 housing. I then thought there might be some low income housing near Sedona and that would be better for her. She would be near her peeps and vortices and have the potential for future employment once the New Age bookstores and gift shops opened again. I then had to check myself by asking my husband’s daughter where the line was. Do I just wait to be asked or do I suggest Cottonwood? I learned I could send the suggestion, but I could not call the apartments to find an opening. So, I did, but after the daughter left, I did Google to see if there were any and then sent a screenshot. I told you, I am in recovery.
I thought I would wake up on Sunday, completely exhausted as I still had residual Covid exhaustion, which makes me feel on trend ever since I read that Dr. Fauci is studying the long-term effects and believes it may cause Epstein/Barr activation. Great! But, I felt like my old self and when I saw my doctor on Monday was able to say that I was feeling 90 to 95% myself for the first time in a month. Only upon arriving home did I realize that maybe getting her stuff out of the house had set me free.
The internal dialogue continued. “Was I too cold hearted?” “You could” and then there was a litany of things I “could do,” followed by that new voice in my head pointing out it was not mine to do. It was biblical in nature, good versus evil, temptation and salvation. It was the snake in the Garden telling me to take a bite. It was Lot trudging away from Sodom and Gomorrah and resisting the urge to tell his wife to look back. It fascinated me to realize the depth of my programming, my learned guilt, my questioning of what constitutes a kind and decent being versus a co-dependent doormat. There were a lot of cliffhangers and WWHD – what will Heather do. The pain of not doing the habitual was deep and familiar and equally amazing as it slowly began to counterbalance with the pain of actually doing it. I realized this would continue to be a struggle until the phone call Monday.
She called to say she was getting out of rehab Wednesday. Against my advice and her daughters’ as she was not yet steady on her feet and certainly should not be living alone. She stated she could not stay in rehab because the food is so bad. On the Sunday night call, I had mentioned that two more weeks of bad food compared to being able to drive and live on her own seemed a good trade. I was then treated to a monologue about how she will be completely transforming the nursing home and then hospital system of food. She will be getting federal grants and it may take her ten years, but she will turn this ship around. I mentioned she would be able to use her doctorate in geriatric studies. She did not hear that as she was on a roll and then later, snarked at me, “I have a doctorate in this you know.” “Yes,” I said, “I already acknowledged that.”
Monday, as I was attempting to get out the door to handle transferring money so the Chinese kid could pay tuition or more simply stated -- I was doing something for someone else, she called. There was a bit of blathering and I asked her to get to the point as I had to get out to an appointment.
“I get out Wednesday, can I come back and stay there for a few days?”
“NO!” I boomed in a voice I have never heard come out of me and with a line I have never drawn. “Wednesday is the day you needed to be out and that cannot change.”
“You said that you were willing to change that date so it would really help me out.”
“Never said that, the date cannot be moved for many reasons and there is no point in discussing this.”
“Oh, you did say it,” she had raised her voice significantly “And you changed the move out date. You said the end of the month and then changed it to the 27th.”
The room spun a bit, but I remained calm and reiterated there was no leeway or wiggle room.
“Well, if you want to change what you promised now, that is inconvenient for me.”
The back of my head nearly blew off. The one thing that will ignite my outrage is to be called a liar or have revisionist history thrown in my face.
“You are never coming back here. All of your things are in the garage except your computer and cat.”
I heard, “But I have nowhere to go,” and then the phone went dead. I took it as a sign to finish the banking and get out the door. She called back and I let it go.
Hours later when I opened my iPad, I found a message from her iPhone. I have no idea why some iPhone texts go to my iPad and not my Android, but there it was her reply.
“Hi well, I guess that did not go so well. Here is my preference. (Really?) We did say we’d talk details today. If I could come on Wednesday. Pack up a few more items of clothing. Get cat and paraphernalia. Get all paperwork on desk. On and in desk. Get aromatherapy essentials. Bathroom essentials. Computer stuff Pack up misc bedding to store. I should be able to do it in 4-6 hours. (Hmm took 16 hours of manpower over the weekend and none of us were using a walker) That will leave a fair. Amount of things still to be done by your friend. (Hired worker)To store. If that sounds acceptable it puts the pressure on social worker here to find me a living situation. They will deliver me there at some point and I wouldn’t have to spend the night. (Because you can’t) If you already started moving things, etc, it might take a little longer but I can get a motel room and finish up on Thursday. You originally said end of then month and then changed it to the 27 by the way. (isn’t that the end of the month?) (Here’s the kicker) Plus a friend suggested we might have some unresolved past life stuff which decided that now would be a good time to clear them. For anything this life or any life, please forgive me. There were certainly plenty that were nasty over the centuries. I’m sorry that this has created so much pressure for you it is not my intention. God has a plan and it will work out for good.”
In my reply, I restated for the fourth time that all was out of the room and that I would happily load up her car with clothes and her cat and deliver it wherever she ends up. The response was polite but did contain “I wasn’t trying to make you wrong just stating what I remember from our original conversation.” Or, you are still wrong and I am right.
What has this done for me? I feel I have built a border wall that you cannot dig under or repel over. That this has been a gift to me to finally get clear of where that line in the sand exists and that the winds of a bully cannot obfuscate it. I am nearing the finish line, but I still worry that this is a race I might consider entering again because like a retired fire horse, I might try to move back into place to have the harness fall on me again.
