Not rising to the occasion .....Help

[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

[sea storm]

Ah wise ones..... You have come through with excellent, realistic solutions.

I will go to church tomorrow and Ask for help. Once when I was really sick and had no one to help some Jehovahs Witness ladies came to the door and I said that I needed help to cook a turkey as my fridge had conked out and I had a turkey to cook for people I invited. iwas way too weak to have a dinner party. Anyway..... These two ladies cleaned the house made the stuffing, dressed the turkey, set the table and cleaned away clutter, swept the floor. They were wonderful. I have not been as grateful to many people as I was to those ladies.

This is hard to do. Cripes.  Those are the women who step up and help. I like that. I hope I am like that too.

I hired a young woman to help me and she is so diplomatic and good at it. THere is just too much stuff though. So I am going to the  harder level of throwing out good stuff.   She says things like " you can do it", Only two boxes a day.... I am so proud of you.
She is becoming like a daughter to me.  She LIKES organizing things and gets excited and happy when I say
 Lets make a schedule.  Up comes a calendar with cartoons of bunnies and target dates and they are up on the fridge before I know it.  Yesterday we emptied a bookshelf and she said Isnt that lovely.  It was .  Clear and fresh somehow.

I laughed when I read executive functions. So true. I have a hefty IQ but it is dampened down considerably by my lack of organizational ability. Now I find that funny. I don't have to worry so much about it.

Gee Hops, This is a tall order to get up at church and say I need help. Might as well get up in church and say
I'm going to Jerusalem.  Nevertheless, I will do it.  I am desperate. And humble enough.

Any other thoughts appreciated.

I would like to take a road trip and visit you all. Sweet voices in the morning offering encouragement and wise words.

Sea

[sea storm]

I donated 24 boxes of books. Hired a yard guy who is mowing the lawn as I write. Went to church and ended up going to help someone who invited 10 people to her house as someone couldn't do the lunch. It is all so bizarre. I helped with the lunch and then asked my friend to help me with moving this week. I asked if she knew some other ladies who could help. She looked so of surprised and said she would get back to me.

so I went to church. It was good to hear that god is there to comfort me. I asked for help. It was very awkward but I am getting the idea sort of. Ask for help.  A good lesson in life. Go where people are helpful.

I can't keep everyone happy while I am doing this moving.  It is such a big job. I don't want to go to my new old house with all this stuff. In case I die for one thing. My child would be left with all this stuff. In case I have cleared the decks for a happy life. Or another chapter or something.

The executive function not doing so good either.  Okay, so I will hire someone to help me apply for pension etc. Meanwhile, I am reading The EVERning Star by Larry mc Murtry.  I love the way he writes. It is full of great characters, imperfect and grand. Just finished Lonesome Dove, my favourite book of all.  He is like an epic psychoanalyst as well as a wonderful story telling and promotor of being fully human. The characters in Lonesome Dove are people who live in the context of a certain culture and so they make sense there and we all make sense if people really knew our culture. Hardly anyone knows how to do that or tries to do it.
In Lonesome Dove, Mc Call gets the notion to go north and settle in Montana. It is a hellish expedition and they are like good people in hell.  This is my kind of story. i have to laugh. "  And I sang in my chains like the sea"

At church they said that we are living in hell and the promised land is death and resurrection.  This kind of goes with my current mood. People are so bizarre. I wish i could be churchy and really go for it wholeheartedly. Not going to happen. Parts of it are encouraging. The god part. Being good and not caving in to evil.

I feel like I have been pushing a plow up hill. This is a recurrent theme.  Nevertheless, here it is again.

Oh I love the sound of the weed eater. The guy is weedeating with gusto.  He seems to have no idea about what to weedeat and what to leave. I don't care.
\Sea

[Cadbury]

It sounds like you are doing brilliantly!

I know how it feels to be overwhelmed by "stuff". The ideas others have posted are great.

Sometimes when I am trying to clear things out, instead of trying to get rid of things I pick things to keep. For example, I might say I can keep 50 books (or whatever), then I pick my favourite 50 and the rest just have to go, but I haven't had to get rid of them. Likewise with ornaments, I think of a sensible number to keep, and choose my favourites. Then I don't have to torture myself with choosing some to get rid of as I only choose the keepers.

Does that even make any sense?!

Anyway, keep doing what you're doing!

[Hopalong]

Oh hell, Sea, didn't mean to alarm you with god-talk or a sense you'd have to "pretend" to believe or anything. I am agnostic and half my church buddies are atheist or secular humanist or something else with no lable. Lotsa Buddhists.

I forget that churches like mine don't exist everywhere--http://uua.org/beliefs/principles/index.shtml

But good people do.

So I am so impressed that you went, and asked for help.

love
Hops

[sea storm]

Thanks for the comments. I am listening to them and taking action. No choice but to forge on.
I am moving my store to which is really as full as a store.

Its ok about the church thing and I did ask for help and they are coming on Tuesday when I have a big dumpster coming. Twenty two feet long. This will have an end .......  The topic at church that day was helping others and finding comfort in God.  So that was nice.
My back is out feels like pulled rib. This would make a good movie comedy. Going to the Jehovah Witness Church for help. Who am I to be critical?????? In small towns things get done differently. None of this cloistering with like minded souls or maybe the city is like that too.

I didn't in the least take offence Hops. Just thankful you are standing by.

I drove to the new house and before I didn't want to see it. It was so lovely with lilac  bushes in the front and a big purple rhododendron. What a garden paradise. Houses are cheap here for Canada so I am lucky to get such a cute house. It is quiet there too. There is some kind of giant tree in bloom in the back yard that has white flowers that are like trumpets pointing at the ground. Whoever the woman was who made this garden was so inspired.  i bought the house in the winter so didn't know about all this.

I shouldn't complain so much. I am grateful for having a place to go.

[sea storm]

I am not alarmed by god talk.  God talk is much better than most talk. In AA and Al Anon there is plenty of god talk and people admit that life is hard  and it is important to have faith in something higher than ourselves. It leads to humility and at the same time helps me not to feel alone.

My inner child does not like this big work trip. I have an really wacko customer who is raising cane. Some people are really problematic. They come out of the woodwork like creepy things and scare me. I am living on the assembly line. Like Lucy and Ethel stuffing chocolates. that was really funny and I will look at this as funny too someday. But not today.

Last night I wrote about past which is asserting itself and want to be remembered as if it has a life of its own. The mind is very tricky. Come to think of it I wrote about being in a storm but all things were in balance on the ship and with me. There was a lot going on  but it was in sinc. I nearly said of course.  I really don't like that phrase and cringe when people say that crisply because in my world there is no of course.

How weird that as I move forward the past wants its due. Poetic justice. So I wrote about what its like to be alone in a big wind in the middle of nowhere. There is no room for fear and no time for it.  That in itself is  what keeps things going. You just put fear away and it is courage for me.

I am not a worker bee. some people love to be busy but not me. Soon this will be over. at least it will be done on June 11 which is moving day. For some reason this is like pulling myself up by the hair, turning myself inside out and creating a new self. Letting go of the past dream, love, goals everything. Other people do this without a pause and I used to too. Flip the channel and away you go.
I am lucky that I am not like that.

I guess that is what makes a writer or painter.  Can't just flip the channels.

Love to all you listeners and blessings too,
Sea

[Hopalong]

I so understand, Sea.
For me (poet type) moving is agony.
No matter where I live, almost without exception, I bond to the specific location, that particular earth and shrub and light through window, as though it is my own sinew and bone. And when I must be uprooted I feel yanked screaming from the earth with fiery roots trailing from the bottoms of my feet that lash at my ankles as I go unwillingly, feeling the weight of a hundred anvils on my back, looking over my shoulder, and weeping.

And now it's two years on and...I love my new little house. I go by the old one sometimes, and all trace of the tug is gone. I am relieved. I am back in the present. I am living, and I am living here.

This will come for you too, Sea. And soon.

love
Hops

[sea storm]

Ah I see you know how it is.  Extremely good to know this. Dragging anvils, fiery roots.  Yep.

Sea

[lighter]

::Sigh::

Hops, you say it so well.

About an hour ago my youngest and I drove by our lovely little house that offered 3 years of shelter from the storm.

And it was sad.  My youngest wanted to put more tape on a bush a bear had broken (she saved that bush, and it still stands), and peek at the furnishings the new people put in "our" house, and it was just so poignantly, achingly sad.

We can't go back there.  That house holds a new baby, and another family who'll enjoy the mossy, forested backyard with places to have teaparties under canopies of low branched Northern coniphers..... they seemed so prehistoric and magical.  They still do.

But on and up with new experiences, people and places, right?

Sea.....


just keep breathing.  Keep moving.

This too shall pass.

Lighter

[sea storm]

Thanks Lighter

Memories are hard to bear sometimes.  Especially for someone like me who has a truckload of them. It is all quite metaphorical. I have dumped a truckload of momentoes, sent about 5 pickup loads to the dump, 5 caravan loads to second hand store, emptied a large garage full of stuff and another room full of stuff. Much of which I had not touched as it was from other lifetimes it seemed.

I am gradually letting go of the house and the river. I feel like I failed to hold onto it. I just didn't have the strength. I started the antique business to make money and I made about 1200 per month off a 35,000 dollar investment. It did keep things going until I sold the house after five years of it being on the market. I will be able to rest a bit after I move. With all this exercise I have gotten stronger and sleep regular hours now.

I am lucky I survived the psychopath.  He was dangerous in so many ways. It drove me to the brink of suicide after he slandered me to everyone I knew. The lengths he went to were enough to spin my head around.The money fraud was about 150,000 and so the fact that I survived that enough to get a small house and be able to have anything is a marvel. Just surviving a character like that and being in his thrall.  At work I was targeted by a narcissist and several people had a law suit going against her but there was  a gag order so they didn't tell me. THey let me be slowly boiled in oil. I survived that.  I would not be able to do it again. My health took a dive and I have been slowly building it up. So this house is the monument to all that. I can no longer be tied to it.

Along the way I have learned that stuff doesn't matter much. A house is not who i am or want to be, Better to travel light. Things will be different after I move. Change is not always horrifying. The PTSD just makes me think it is. False Evidence Appearing Real.  So I move on even though I am scared because I have the faith that I am moving to a better place emotionally. I wish I didn't wake up in a cold sweat every morning.  I will appreciate having nothing to do for awhile.  Today I worked really hard and took a load to the secondhand store. Pretty soon everything will just go in the dumpster I rented for Tuesday.
This sounds like a lot of whining and snivelling to me. My inner critic is at full force these days. My inner child has just had it and wont do a thing and just pouts in the corner or cries.

I will have a lot more sympathy for people who are moving now.  The whole time we were packing I listened to  my helper's complaints about her lazy brother in  law who doesn't pay rent and she can't get up the courage to get him to pay his share. Everyone seems to have a lot on their shoulders these days.

I hope everyone has time to rest and reflect and be alive in their senses.

Sea