Contained--from 2021

Contained

The above photo wasn’t intended to be a photo at all. The empty basket was a proud moment as mere minutes ago all the contents of that basket had been dumped to be evaluated and sorted into the classic piles: keep, give, toss. My now-deceased sister-in-law gifted the Amish-made basket to my husband and I when we complained about needing a temporary catch-all for the detritus that cluttered our counters and other horizontal spaces before finding more apt locations. Coupons, meal planners, grocery lists, and menus to local restaurants took up much of the volume. But so did graduation invitations, photos, holiday cards, and fortunes extracted from cookies. Upon dumping it out onto the living room floor, aside from the food crumbs that now reveal as litter, the contents demonstrated 2 things… 1. I have to visit this basket more often or stop using it. 2. There is a reason I am cleaning out this basket today. Today is a very hard day. And I didn’t realize that until I saw this pile of stuff. It is time to deal with it...all of it.

I have been feeling increasingly unhappy at work. I love teaching. As of year 27, I’ve yet to launch a real, deep-muscled complaint about the work, the kids, or the circumstances of tasks in my employment. But I was stagnating. I didn’t know why. For about the last 5 years I was detaching from the kids and our relationships. My time spent after-hours in the building began to slide, my excitement about waking up on any typical Tuesday, for instance, was waning. Seeing the graduation party invitations from a few years ago took my breath away. If someone had asked me, name 5 kids from the class of____ , I would have been hard-pressed to name one. The kids just at some point started to meld together in my head--faces, names, events became repetitious and heart-breakingly inconsequential. But seeing their joyful faces on these invitations and announcements, I relished in memories of each one as I placed them gently into a pile moving permanently from the basket to a bag of like-tangibles from other years and those memories--my hands on papers their hands touched drew things more into focus…their smiles opened my heart and I forgave myself for any slights they would never have even recognized. 

Expired coupons, grocery lists, and weekly dinner plans reminded me more of good times passed than opportunities missed. Usually I come upon expired coupons and immediately get frustrated at the money I could’ve saved had I only been more organized/prepared/less flighty; any of those reasons apply so long as they are recalled in the voices of either of my parents--I’m an oldest child still hung up on pleasing two people who long ago stopped doting such attention to both me and the significance of my saving 50 cents on soap. I initially went to the basket to retrieve actual, viable coupons for a trip out today and had to giggle at the list for which I currently have to run as it is so similar to the items on the expired coupons--items I would have been out of at this point anyway...funny, that our household needs remain so consistent.

I also came across a binder of printed versions of our family’s electronic calendar. We started the joint Google calendar about 2014 when our son was old enough to have events and occasions he could schedule himself--practices, trips to friends’ houses and we wanted to be transparent about more pressing events like doctor’s appointments, out-of-town family visits that might cause scheduling conflicts. We knew this level of awareness might establish greater independence and responsibility for him. Looking back, it did; though it wasn’t always successful for us, the mere opportunity for collaborative conversation engendered growth for all of us.

The meals planned for and shared; the events scheduled--now, memories; the use of things, making a house a home, all lead me to reflecting on the let-down of this past year in COVID. How many systems changed? Groceries delivered instead of selected by hand. How many graduations never occurred? How many events, never hosted?

None of this compares, though, to the realization that my only son is headed to college this year. Meals will now be for 2. Coupons will be clipped for him, as my mother did for me. Meal planning will be about the reuniting family dinners when he comes to the door announcing his arrival and there will be smiles and hugs compared to the mumbled greetings, fleeting glances, and two-stepping gallops up the stairs to change his clothes before meeting his friends and heading off to his next thing without us. Coming home will be different. For all of us.

From his 8th grade to 12th grade, “my school kids” were replaced by my kid. The hundreds of melding faces took shape as one curly-haired, brown-eyed, teenage boy; he came better into my own focus and his needs rightfully superseded theirs. His world trounced theirs. My role as mom was more about my accessibility rather than my necessity. Our time here in COVID lock down was the pinnacle of that--and this pile of evidence reminds me I have a lot more situations to look forward to than items to purge. And I have to start treating my body, time, and relationships with greater love and commitment than ever before if I can be the mom I still have yet to be for that young man. The contents of that basket will look very different in 4 more years. 

For now, all is put away, where it belongs. It is empty. Like our soon-to-be nest. The woven wood like tangled, fragmented, branches that once held things we needed; held promises of better things yet to come.