junecleavage

If you stripped away all the kid shit in our house - there would be nothing left but me, spouse and house. Okay, that's not entirely true. In fact, it's not even sort of true. I am a hoarder...but not in the collect garage sale junk and Burger King giveaways and lawn gnomes and never throw away trash way. I just save and have boxes of my past everywhere. In my mother's house, my grandmother's house, our house, my brothers' (they still live together you see - like Bert and Ernie - it's sort of gross really) house. Boxes of letters and pictures and every school notebook since the beginning of taking notebooks to school and matchboxes written on during bus rides to Manhattan and napkins from everywhere - GEZUS . It's all in there. I tell you this because my house sort of is this collage of the stuff that has crept out and vomited itself all over the goddamned place. And my mother's house is like that too. And so is my grandmother's. And, I have been sharing here and there that my grandmother is rapidly and deeply losing her mind - and just today - entered the hospital with pneumonia - and I am starting to just "prepare." You know? In that, "do I need to come home now Mommy?" - kind of way. She says no, not yet. But in all of this she is sharing with me what it is like to have to go through all of my grandmother's stuff...boxes and boxes of it labeled "tablecloths" and well lookie right here on top are more letters and pictures and just shit my mom didn't even know about - This one says "Christmas decorations" - wow - there's more pictures and letters - Like THIS gem (the little girl between the cig smoking hotties is my momma and my already established adored grand-parents)

She was telling me that she doesn't want to put myself and my brothers through that...that she wants everything clearly labeled so we aren't slapped in the face by her past...that way if we want to visit it...we can do so by choice. She tells me every time she unveils one of these treasure troves it is like being punched in the stomach over and over again. She simply wasn't prepared to relive her parent's world that way.
And then she tells me about this letter she found from my father - the birth one - the one with the eyes - (cause that's where they came from incidentally) - he left when i was a 6 month old girl - and all those stories are really just better left alone. But anyway...she found this letter that she never knew about that he had sent to my grand-parents just after he deserted my mother (who was at the time a teenager) and I basically apologizing for "being such a fucking asshole." (to quote my mom). She said, " I think that may have been the most mature and responsible thing he ever did for you."
It sort of broke my heart. But talking about him at all does that. So, let's not.
Anyway, to wrap up this rambling sad sap saga, I return home to my beloved family and roots and life and just...ahhhhh....home...the beach for a week, lifelong friends, (who never fucking leave that place but...who's judging?!) huge gatherings, history, love, HOME in just weeks now. I grow anxious about the Stepford functions and run-ins I will no doubt experience but it also grounds me me in ways. Mainly, because as long as I am alive I will never live there again. And that gives me great peace.
And it also makes me think I need to go through all those boxes, in all those places, like my mother was saying, to sort this shit out from the past once and for all.
Even if just so my kids (and husband for that matter) can go on unencumbered by the shit of their mother's past.
Eh?