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Not rising to the occasion .....Help

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sea storm:
I am supposed to move out of my house. I went through a tough patch and medicated myself by buying stuff that had potential. also my ex was a fisherman and i had all the rigging and nets of a large fishboat to get rid of. That is no excuse. The garage is almost done and now I go through the bottom half of the house. I can hardly bring myself to do it. I am not doing it. There are three rooms full of lamps and silk and stuff for making victorian lampshades. There is one room full of books and old furniture and clothes and stuff from the past. I don't want to touch it as it drenches me with memories.
My sister has gone off the deep end and is sending me a barrage of emails telling me how I am letting her down. She wont take medication and in the past I have been there continually to listen and support her through her rages and rants and alienating people.
She is a lovely person when she is not ill.
I have been pushing a huge rock uphill. The psychological part is the hardest. Also, I pulled a muscle under my rib and it hurts when I lift stuff. I need help but I can't ask people to help with this as it is so helpless of me.
It is helping to write this. I need to hire a stranger. Someone who has no feeling whatever for stuff. Some people comment on all that I have and how it is too much stuff. Those people aren't telling me anything I want to hear.

The place I am moving into will be a new start. It is smaller and does not have so many memories. I watched the DEEP END last night and I saw how attached some people get. Tilda Swinton was an attacher.She dealt with the aftermath of a psychopath who targeted her son. The psychopath ended up dead, kind of accidentally dead. I know that sounds to ironic. What struck me was the depth of her attachment to those she loved. She was inarticulate but had a great heart and soul. She falls in love with the man who comes to extort money from her. He is transfromed by love and sacrifices his life for her.
There was no stuff in her house. Every ounce of energy was devoted to her children and ailing father in law. Even such a paragon is open to being victimized by bad people.  The bad people were not completely bad but they were lethally dangerous anyway.

I took my friend for cancer treatment and it was a three hour drive there and back. It was moving and I was deeply touched by her beauty. She was wearing her old motorcycle boots and her legs were toothpicks in these boots. Her hair was falling out and she was dressed like Titania, Queen of the Faeries. We held hands on the way down.  I have warm hands and hers were so cold and she was shaking. We talked about death and it was just honest.
That night another friend called who was lonely and afraid. And my daughter sent an article on how it is impossible to keep up friendships when you work and have children.

At the end of the movie Tilda cries and cries. Her son comes in and looks at her and he understands. He says 'You don't have to tell me all about it".  She says,"Just hold me" and they embrace and he holds her while she slowly comes back from sobbing.

I think I have enough money to hire some people but not enough. If I was stronger and had more backbone I could do this. I am not good at organizing. It is a very underdeveloped part of me or maybe the result of a few bonks on the head.
I think I need to back off of my business while i do this. I sell oriental antiques and there are some very demanding customers. It makes me want to stop. They think that shaming will get them a lower price.

I gave a loom to a lady and she hasn't phoned or come to pick it up. For ... sake a loom. More phone calls bla bla bla..

All this is so I can retire at sixty five. My goal is to move into a place with less stuff and be free to create. This kind of goal can strip everything away and forces me to look at my dark side or wounded side. It forces me to come out of hiding and connect with people. It forces me to give away my past and let go.  Letting go is good but being forced to is hard. I don't care if it is hard, i want to do it.

I think I need to close the store....... It is doing quite well but it is way too much right now. I have about 200 visitors a day to my site.  It seems to take about 3000 visitors to get 4 or five sales. So hard go for small dough but very rich and interesting. Of these people there are some real mindbenders and manipulators.


So there it is. Advice apprectiated.

Sea storm

Hopalong:
No clear idea what the community is like where you are, Sea, but this anecdote if it helps (though it's smaller scale):

I was stuck in my parents' big house after they died, and had to rent out a wing. The new minister at the UU church
decided to rent it from me. That was good. BUUUUT, the idea of emptying and tidying and getting it all ready for him
was completely, totally overwhelming. I tried, made dabs, but was as hampered by memory and indecisiveness AND
back pain, as you can imagine in your "now."

So the Sunday before he arrived I stood up in the "Joys and Concerns" bit and said, he's arriving in 24 hours and the
apartment isn't ready and I don't know how to get this done. Nearly by the time I sat down, there were 5 people
at my pew, saying, what's the address, how's 2 o'clock? And by the end of that day those ANGELS had descended
on the space, sorted out Mom's clothes for donation, cleaned the bathroom floor to ceiling, packed up wallsfulls
of bookshelves, vacuumed, carried out excess furniture, etc. I will never, ever forget what it was like to ask for
the help I needed, and then receive it.

Dunno if a local org. or church is appropriate for you -- but where there are groups of people, there are people
who like to help. I imagine it as being very healing for you to stand up somewhere and say, Can anyone help
me with this?

And just see what happens.

love
Hops

lighter:
sea storm:

I lack executive function skills too.... I know what it's like to look at a pile of stuff and not know what exactly should be the priority.

I know what it's like to be emotionally attached to things, and I'm the family "keeper of stuff" too. 

When push came to shove, I hired someone who wasn't attached to the stuff, and who had the skills I lacked.  It was amazing, and worth every penny to have the clean, clear, uncluttered sunny spaces. 

They're worth all the pain of releasing the past, and making room for serenity, energy, and.....

you.

I like Hops' idea of asking for help.  I'm great at helping other people with their clutter, but not so good on my own.  Maybe you could trade out with a couple friends who need some attention in their sacred spaces as well?

Nothing like having someone pry things out of your hands for a while, until you get the hang of it yourself, when staring a project like this, is what I say.

Lighter

Izzy_*now*:
High SeaStorm…..

…..and you are sinking?

I appears to me that you hire an unknown to get rid of things for you. If he/she can help in another way, that person could approach you about a certain item, to keep or not---who tries to advise you what you want. You can even have pretend quarrels about Grandma’s under the bed potty! If you doubt you would use it in the next 6 months? Dump it!

I have had newer such items and when the next clean up came and “such and such” STILL hadn’t been used, out it went.

I know it is hard, and you might have a regret or two but something has to be done. You admit it!

I’ve had a few clean outs in the last 10 years and used that technique. I found my gal through craiglist.

I rather comes from both sides, wanting, not wanting the space it takes up. I weigh balance and it’s usually gone.

(i.e., I bough a new w’chair cushion, $600.00) and the old one sat here interminably. I finally had Ellen throw it out, and soon after that I purchased the new ‘chair and have no cushion for it. The old one was made to measure & would have been better than a bed pillow…..so some things require extra thought. You win some and lose some!)

Is there any way you can move what you want to the new SMALLER house, and therefore that makes up your mind?

There is a local woman who would do this free, just to be helpful, she advises, and won’t accept payment, yet a tip would suffice!

Good Luck!

Izzy

Izzy_*now*:
btw, SS

I donate all my books to the library---up here they will pick them up. There is only one I haven't donated: an original run of "The Catcher in the Rye", as I read that every few years......the longest relationship I have ever had.....a real mess, but all pages still here!!!
Iz

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