Emotionally Exhausted

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I started the basement re-org this morning. It's been a big fat mess since Simon moved home last September - yes, that long! I need to make room for his stuff on a wall of shelves. Every time I go through my personal stuff on those shelves, I get rid of a bit more. This sort of surprises me a little bit because I'm not all that sentimental and I'm pretty big on purging.

Simon is more Mr. Slap Dash; it's easier to throw everything into boxes than actually sort out the stuff that can be trashed or recycled or donated. So I was feeling pretty good, sorting out his stuff, throwing away stuff, all proud of myself.

Then I came to one of my boxes on the shelves, of his artwork from elementary school. I was immediately reduced to a teary mess of sentimentalism. Who, me? Yep.

I love these 4 pieces! I was very proud of myself for keeping just the stuff I love, not every little thing. Then I came upon another box with a lot more stuff from his elementary school years. There were report cards and other "important" things but way too much every day stuff. Oh. Guess maybe I am a little bit one of Those Parents.

So I pulled a Simon and shoved it all back in the box to deal with another day.

Then I came to the box of his baby things with all of his adoption paperwork and mementos. I knew Simon hadn't seen most of that stuff and would totally appreciate them now, at age 21. As the universe sees fit . . . Simon came home just as I opened the box. You think I was teary above? Forget about it. I had not looked at most of this stuff in probably 19 years.

Simon was blown away, especially by the Korean stuff that arrived with him - books and trinkets. "This stuff is priceless, Mom!" Priceless to us, anyway, definitely. He read the paperwork from the Korean adoption agency telling us what kind of baby he was. I showed him the monthly reports I had to write during his first year with us. I'm sure our home studies are in there too - didn't really look for those. I know someday he'll go back and read every word of that stuff.

Mostly I think he felt shock & awe that I had kept so many things relating to his earliest years. He kept saying, "Mom - don't throw this out!" As if.

It was such an incredible experience, going through that stuff with him. I had no idea that was going to happen like that. (I would have started reorganizing the basement a lot sooner if I knew there were gems of moments like that awaiting me!)

The basement doesn't look that much better yet, but I did significant work behind the scenes. We threw out 2 large garbage bags of crap - even Simon threw out stuff including an old Super Soaker and an old remote controlled car, neither of which works. (That's pretty significant for him, he doesn't part with stuff easily, broken or not.) I cut up lots of cardboard for recycling. I turned on my mail for the Freecycle group I belong to so I can get rid of some stuff that way. And Simon took a few things into his room to "play" with. (I warned him I better not see those things reappearing helter skelter back in the shelving area.)

To show that I come by this purging thing genetically, just yesterday Mom emailed me to ask me if she could donate some leftover fabric we had from the tablecloths we made for my craft show booth tables - just 3 months ago. Waste not, want not. :-)

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