I love my parents, but living with them at this stage of life isn’t exactly a vacation — for me or for them.
If you read last week’s post, you know that after driving up to Vermont to get my oldest settled at school, I spent five days back in my childhood home on Long Island, forcing helping my parents declutter over 50 years’ worth of “stuff”.
It felt like five months.
It was emotional and challenging, to say the least — especially for my parents.
I’m not particularly sentimental. I do have my moments, but I’m more of a purger (I won’t go into the psychological reasons why — that’s a post for another day). My parents, on the other hand, are the opposite. They are also stubborn AF (like me; it’s obviously hereditary) … Can you see where this is going?
My plan was to spend five full days sorting, donating, and tossing out as much unnecessary stuff as possible. My mother’s plan was to keep, decide later, and sell at a garage sale “sometime this fall” as much stuff as possible.
As the “brawn” between the three of us, my intention was to do the heavy lifting, bending, and reaching to save my father’s back. His intention was to do it himself when I wasn’t looking and then argue with me about it when I told him to stop.
This wasn’t going well.
I was told five times in the first two days that I had done enough and could go home now. To clarify, by that point, all I had done was find a place to donate my father’s old VHS movie collection (over 700 titles!) and clean out the space under the kitchen sink, half of the kitchen pantry, and one-eighth of the garage (I had cleared out one-quarter, but “someone” refilled it with items previously in the “get rid of” pile!).
We were far from finished.
What saved me from giving up and going home — besides a daily morning walk to the gym, where I had a five-day guest pass — was the ability to step back and see the big picture: This wasn’t about me; it was about them. It also wasn’t really even about their stuff; it was about what the stuff represented: Their life together. Their memories. Their youth.
To them, I think, getting rid of it all (be it selling, donating, or throwing it away) feels like the end.
I get that now.
Before I left, we did make some headway. We found a guy who specializes in estate sales and consignment who will come to their home next week to assess everything and make a plan. He’s a bit extra, but he knows his business and has tons of connections and prospects, so I feel good about this. More importantly, my mom feels good about it. She was comfortable with him and he made her feel seen and heard — What more can you ask for?
Helping aging parents transition from one home to another, or from one stage of life to the next, is definitely challenging and can be frustrating AF. I know it is for me. But I am grateful my parents are both still here and still have enough spunk to try to fight me on the daily.
— LJDT
