Deconstructing a Life

On Friday I was challenged by EJG to post by Sunday night. Both of us have had a rough time disciplining ourselves to post consistently. Life - work, family, stuff - just seems to be taking up too much of our respective days to leave time for reflection.

So throughout the holiday weekend, I considered each event for its blog-worthiness. How about expounding on time spent with family? About how different each member is, yet connected just the same. So ... connections, perhaps. Or traditions. Or discord ... and solidarity. The observations I made on a lovely six-mile walk around the lake. Maybe just relay something really cute the kids said or did. There's no shortage of those stories, for sure.

But it's the end of my weekend I've decided to comment on. Difficult as it was to yank myself from the serenity of a Northern Michigan lake-side retreat to head back home, I did. My shirt drenched with the scent of wood smoke and sand still between my toes, I returned to the fourteen letter word I dread:

R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y

Yuck.

Laundry to launder. Lawn to mow (may still have to wait a few days). Car to clean out (turning it in this week - last possible moment as always). And the biggie for me: Continued work on my project of the last 18-plus months - what I've called deconstructing a life - cleaning out my dad's house and getting it ready to sell. 

I've been promising myself I'd try to work on the house a few hours a week. Somehow, all the pieces and parts of my life seem to get in the way of me working on the project - and so it's taking much longer than I anticipated. And probably much longer than it "should."

Ugh. Hate "shoulds."

It really does feel like taking apart a life that was constructed over many decades. How can you deconstruct it in just a few weeks or months or even years? 

I've already disposed of most of the things I could pack up and make a quick decision about. Now I'm getting into the bits where I wonder if I'm about to toss something really important. Something with deep meaning attached about why it was acquired in the first place. Weird stuff that some people could probably toss in a heartbeat. I have to ruminate and wonder what the story was behind it. Was there a story? Was the acquisition an Alzheimer's "thing" with no real rationale? As an example, last fall I found three bags of sand in the garage at the bottom of a huge pile my brother and I had attacked layer by layer. Today, I finally got up the courage to dump it out in the back yard. See, I've been wondering what was special about that sand. My guess is Dad had gathered it from the family cottage he and his brother sold after my grandparents died. And there was one bag of sand for each of us kids. I think that's just the sort of thing he would do. But he was waiting for just the right moment to give us our bags. Perhaps the moment never came. Or he changed his mind. Or forgot. 

A couple of the neighbors have been curiously watching my slow progress these many months. When they see my car in the driveway one or another will wander over to see how it's going. Help me haul stuff to the road. Ask out over and over what our plans are for the house. They tell me stories about my dad as their neighbor for nearly 40 years. Sometimes the stories make me smile. And sometimes I have to groan.

There have been times when going through this process has seemed like punishment, yet there have been sacred moments, too. In the process of taking apart one life, you find yourself deciding what should be incorporated into another - or what may have been incorporated already. 

I guess I've just scratched the surface of my ponderings on this topic. No answers. Just ponderings.