Time goes on and changes need to be made. As a Taurus, I’m not so good with changes. Which is why the house is still cluttered with the belongings of people I once gave birth to but have now moved on.
A request was issued to these individuals that the next time they find themselves in their former bedrooms they go through drawers and closets and place any items they no longer EVER want into large trash bags and leave them in the middle of the room. The request is honored. Three months ago. I get so used to seeing the trash bags I forget they’re not furniture.
So I arrange for the Vietnam Veterans of America to come pick up our driveway full of discards. This is my charity of choice because this was the war of my childhood. I recall sitting on the floor of our living room as a teenager as our entire family watched the televised draft lottery. Random birth dates scrolling across the TV screen that would determine whether my brother went to college the next year or Southeast Asia. He went to college so I think of those who didn’t. Talk about Reality TV.
Daughter comes to help me prepare for the pickup and we haul Son’s bags to the curb. She lives in the city and he’s at an out of state college. I reach randomly into one of his bags and pull out a sweatshirt from the 7th grade, that’s good, and a parking ticket from last year, that’s not. Daughter laughs. “Well, you said to pack up everything we didn’t want,” she reminds me. I put the ticket in an envelope with a note that the Veterans won’t pay this and mail it out of state.
Don’t look in the bags. That’s the rule. If the bags get opened we’re done for. When I was my kids’ age and scoured my childhood home for the things I would bring away, I was surprised that some of the items I kept weren’t even my mementos. I still have a Cub Scout plaque, Troop 246, that belonged to my brother. Every Friday night my brother and my den-mother mom would go to the meetings. My dad and I would watch The Flintstones and eat graham crackers smooshed in milk. His plaque, my memory.
After the truck leaves we feel light and giddy. Getting rid of baggage always does that. I drive Daughter to the train station and watch her bound the steps, two at a time, a dedicated professional, teacher and grad student. In a Hello Kitty t-shirt. Ah well, rules were made to be broken.