Pistol Packin' Mama
Well. The house is all packed up and ready for the carpet guys. It's big and empty and it echoes. It is austere chaos.
I don't like the house empty. I've rarely equated moving and packing with happiness. It's usually come after some unpleasant event - divorce, etc., and generally stirs up sadness, disappointment, and loss for me. Even though I know I'm not going anywhere, boxing everything up and unearthing artifacts of old memories makes me uncomfortable. Not because I am ashamed of my past, but because I am predisposed to sentimentality and will wallow there far too long given the opportunity.
No matter how many times I clean out my closets and move, things resurface. Tonight we found my old denim Levi jacket that I got when I was the same age as Taylor. (Which she gleefully appropriated.) How many times have I moved this thing? How many years has it been since I've worn it? Good grief. Why have I been packing it around forever?
Maybe I wonder what the girl in that jean jacket would think about me today. I do a few things she swore she'd never do. Such as go out of the house without makeup and jewlery (horrors!), and wear comfortable shoes to work.
So the packing is making me owly. I don't like the packing deja vu, and the unholy mess and disarray isn't something I tolerate well even on a good day. Wierd crap in the corners, under the desks. Unidentifiable crusty things. Enough dust to outfit an entire low-budget horror flick. And the inevitable random papers that everyone is afraid to throw away, but nobody is sure what to do with either. Is this receipt important? Will I invalidate a warranty if I throw away this box? Exactly who IS this picture of, anyway? No, really. We just might need 23 lids that don't appear to match a single pan in the house. What does this nail/screw/tag/notebook/statement/button/electrical cord go to?
I found a trailer hitch in my bedroom closet. Discovered that our daughter has a plastic sheet protector fetish. Pink golf balls. (I don't play golf.) I'm glad this escapade doesn't include the garage, because I'm reasonably certain Jimmy Hoffa is in there. Somewhere. Or, at the very least, I wouldn't be surprised.