Boxes: Just Write

They are going to eat me pretty soon. Like the blob in that old tacky black and white horror movie from the fifties. The boxes, I mean. They are everywhere.

I am sitting on the sofa--the one that is perpetually stained, no matter how much stain remover and steam cleaning we throw at it--in the sunken-in part. (Why does it seem that I am always on the sunken in part of the sofa for Just Write Tuesdays?) My butt is dividing the two cushions...I feel like I'm falling in. Maybe the sofa is going to eat me, too.

I like my stuff pretty neat. Not like OCD neat. In fact, I relish a good chaotic Tupperware cabinet. But I have a hard time relaxing when shit is everywhere.

I thought I would enjoy my house these last few weeks, before the move. But really, who am I kidding?

 

There is stuff everywhere.

At first, I tried to contain it: boxes in one corner, garage sale items in the other; then, pick up the book bags, mail, lunchboxes, jackets worn for the day and tossed on the floor by the door. I thought it would help me relax--picking up the day-to-day stuff--still feel like the owner of this domain, still feel in control. Then I could still enjoy a movie or a book or a glass of wine or some sex....if I wasn't harping mentally on the piles and piles of stuff. But really, now, there is no more containment. It has all exploded.

As we watched a movie Sunday night, I did a really good job of ignoring the 18 boxes piled next to the TV. Each one labeled in thick, black Sharpie. LOFT. WINTER CLOTHES (which, in South Florida, thankfully means a sweater or a turtleneck tossed haphazardly into a giant box). LAUNDRY ROOM. There's another box that Hubby labeled with BIKING CLOTH. I am sure he just ran out of space or time for the ES since I never would have married a man who can't spell clothes.

The family room was an empty space that we have barely used over the last 7 years except as a mini soccer field for our boys and a dance floor for parties. Now, it houses bags and bags (and not the grocery store reusable kind, but actual hefty sized garbage bags...some the kind you can only buy at Home Depot that say something intimidating on the box about Contractor Use) of garage sale items: The Excess. The stuff we've hoarded for all these years because we needed it except we never used any of it.

As I type this, sitting at my kitchen counter, my laptop and phone share the black granite space with two business cards of realtors we are not even doing business with, a post-it with 4 items all scratched off, three pieces of random junk mail, my son's pencil box covered in shiny animal stickers, a coupon for my favorite Mexican place, a 100-dollar-bill-looking eraser, some kind of army Matchbox-looking vehicle I've never seen before, and an index card with a chart depicting exactly how much we will save per month if we get the house on which we just put an offer. There's a towering pile of newspaper and tissue paper on the floor in the corner of my kitchen, waiting to wrap up my delicates. On the other kitchen counter, there's a box of random mail belonging to my husband, an opened bottle of Dreaming Tree red wine, coupons from my son's class, several print-outs of houses for sale, and a bewildering amount of old X-rays (the actual films and the CD's). The old stuff, in need of being tossed, sold, or packed is now mixing in with the new, daily stuff. It is this that is threatening to totally annoy and overwhelm me and send me into a mood reserved only for serious PMS days. I think about tackling some of it as soon as I finish this post. But then I think: Nah. I'm gonna bury my head under the covers for the night. (Isn't that better than running away screaming like in the movies?)

JUST WRITE with me (and Heather of the Extraordinary Ordinary!) every Tuesday.