Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Mom suddenly smiled at me, but there was no real acknowledgment or recognition. The fact that she’d called me “Judy” told me everything I needed to know. She had no idea who I was. Tears formed as I joined her in blankly staring at the television. It was the soap opera that used to be her favorite.
“Did she ask for this show specifically?” I asked the attendant.
She shook her head. “I follow this show, so I put it on.”
I nodded in disappointment.
After an hour had passed, I decided to leave. I’d be coming to see Mom frequently while I was in town, so I didn’t need to stay the entire day.
After my visit, I moved on to the other reason I’d come home: my family’s storage unit. When my father had sold our family home, he’d taken the few things that mattered to him—and his family wasn’t included on that list of keepsakes. He and I mostly corresponded over email now. While I’d told him I was coming home soon, I hadn’t given him an exact date. So he likely didn’t know I was here yet.
Dad had left me with the responsibility of sorting all of our family belongings while I was home. He’d provided me with the information needed to access the storage unit and informed me that he’d prefer not to have to keep paying to store everything. Imagine being in a rush to rid yourself of any shred of your family, of the life you had for decades. And how had this become my life? I wanted to resent my sister for leaving me to deal with this all on my own, but I couldn’t blame her for staying away. Maybe she was the smarter of the two of us. Fawn had started a nice little life for herself in New York. She worked as a nanny for a wealthy couple, and the last time we’d talked, she told me she’d just started dating someone.
I pulled up to the storage unit facility, a series of what looked like individual garage bays. It was in the middle of nowhere, set in the midst of a field of unmanicured grass.
After punching in the code that allowed me to unlock and lift the steel door, I sighed, overwhelmed by the massive piles of stuff that represented my entire childhood, all of my memories, and all of the memories my mother had lost. It felt so heavy. It would take months to sort through everything and decide what to do with it. As I surveyed the scene, somewhere in the mounds of stuff, a chair caught my attention. I sat on it as I began reaching for random items in the rubble of my life story.
A box labeled recipe cards that had been passed to my mother from my grandmother.
Blankets and old bedding, which now smelled musty.
A bag of Christmas ornaments, tinsel, and decorations. Some of the ornaments were sentimental, so I’d put that bag aside to take back to Chicago with me. Someday I could hang them on my tree when I had a family of my own. Who knew if that would ever happen, but if it didn’t, those ornaments might be all I’d have left on the holidays.
As much as I would’ve loved to, I couldn’t hang onto the majority of this stuff. Where would I even put it? I didn’t live here anymore, and I only had so much room in my Chicago apartment.
There were stacks of VHS tapes, and I couldn’t just throw them out without knowing what was on them. But where would I even find a VCR these days?
I turned to a file cabinet filled with folders. This likely contained some important documents. I immediately knew I’d be saving that for later, since I couldn’t handle anything right now that would require me to think too hard. My mother had saved everything from our report cards and awards to medical bills. I could already feel myself burning up from the stress. Where would I even begin?
Somehow, I urged myself forward, and I spent about an hour sifting through, filtering out items I knew with certainty I could donate into white garbage bags I’d picked up at Walmart earlier. Then I had black garbage bags for the items I would throw out. I’d drop off what I could at the local Salvation Army on the drive back to Evan’s.
As much as I’d hoped to find another place to stay for tonight, I’d come up empty again when I’d stopped by the local motels between here and visiting Mom. And the property management company couldn’t find any other rentals for me. I did locate one house available for rent in town on my own, but when I called the number, it turned out to be double my budget. Maybe it would be worth it, but I couldn’t get myself to bite the bullet.