Cleaning to Death

What I've been calling spring cleaning included something else that might seem a bit grim. The concept is called a Swedish Death Clean, and you can read more about it here, but basically you donate, discard and otherwise rid yourself of things you own so that your heirs don't have to do that after your death. It's the ultimate and a very permanent form of cleaning and organizing.

I focused on my favorite person's things first, but once I finished sorting through and donating her possessions from college (with her full knowledge and blessing, btw) I did the same for all the boxes and bins of things I've been storing from my past. Basically I let go of about forty years of records, writing, journals, possessions and other reminders of my past so one day my favorite person won't have to.

Since the first half of my life was spent in poverty, obeying a strict religion while dealing with continuous family troubles, I wrote a great deal about it in my journals to cope. I've always kept the worst details of my life secret, and unfortunately there are many. I don't want to be remembered for what I endured, or strike back at everyone who hurt me in the past.

It was difficult, I admit. I felt at times like I was erasing myself. Yet I am not vindictive person, and once I finished it felt incredibly freeing. Now all that pain has been reduced to memories that will die with me, and I can see that there is no better way to deal with them.

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Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

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Survived Another One

I hope you all are having a lovely holiday. Here it was exactly as I expected, only a little worse. I'm trying to be grateful it wasn't much worse. Thanks to the bomb cyclone my favorite person got stuck in Denver for 5-1/2 hours, but late on Christmas Eve afternoon her flight finally took off. Thousands didn't, so I am very grateful she didn't have to spend Christmas Day in an airport. Meanwhile, I suggested to my guy that we leave an hour early because the airport was going to be a disaster area. He felt confident a half an hour early would be time enough (the man has no concept of time.) Turns out a disaster area would have been pleasant by comparison. We used all of our spare time stuck in traffic. They closed all levels of the parking garage because it was full of people coming and going. We went in anyway, and circled all the full lots for what seemed like forever, but couldn't find a parking spot. Getting out of the garage was then impossib

Rayen

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