On Friday it will be a year since my divorce was final. A year. An entire year. We’ve now been separated for 21 months. It seems like a lifetime ago, yet at times it seems like only seconds.
Last night I had one of those moments. The moments that thankfully are farther and farther between. A moment where I realized I wanted something from the other room and called to him to get it for me. My only response of course, was the dog peeking around the door eyeballing me.
For a moment, I cried for what was.
The day of your divorce isn’t something people want to remember or celebrate in any way. Yet, I can’t seem to not think about it. It’s been in my thoughts for the past few days. This was the end last year. The end of a lifetime. Our lifetime. The end of the way our family had been. We are still family. Those three little people connect us in a way that will never end completely. Yet October 14th last year was our end.
I’ve spent the last year re-creating myself. Making myself get up every day and fake it, until the day came where I didn’t have to fake it anymore. I’ve spent the last year making memories with my kids. New memories. Our memories. Ones Logan doesn’t get to share. He in turn has made a years worth of memories with them as well. Ones I don’t get to share. That’s one of the hardest you know, knowing what you are missing out on in your kids lives.
I don’t know exactly what comes next. I know what I hope comes next. I know good things will happen in the next year, because I will make them happen, just like I did this year. I’m proud of what I’ve done in this past year. I’m proud of who I’ve become in the past year. Someone stronger, more secure in myself, someone I can be proud of.
Divorce isn’t all sunshine and roses. Not even close. Half the time I don’t have my kids. Half the time I am alone with my pup. Sometimes I’m okay with that and other times is sucks donkey balls. I try my best to be positive, but some days are just harder than others. But I’ve made it this far.
If I could tell one thing to people about to start this process? I’d tell you the first year is the worst. It does get better after that. 95% of the time, it’s better. You learn to count on only yourself and well at least for me, I found out that I’m stronger than I ever knew. He’s happier now than he’d been in years. As hard as it is for me to say, I am too. My idea of what our marriage was…well in some ways, it may have been more in my head than the reality. I am happier now. I am.
Sometimes though, I’ll still have a night like last night. A moment where I forget. A moment where I call for someone who left 21 months ago. Shrug. Like I said, at least it’s few and far between these days.
A year. I’ve made it an entire year. While the day of my divorce may not be something to celebrate, me surviving an entire year is.
When Logan first left, the pain of it all felt like it came in constant waves. Like I was on the coast during a horrible storm. The wave would take me under, flip me around and spit me out. I’d barely catch my breath before it did it again. It was brutal. It was non-stop. After awhile it dissipated a bit. A large wave would come and smack me every now and then, but it wasn’t constant. It was almost as if the storm had passed. Most of the time now, it’s not that bad. Even when the waves come, they are little. Lake waves maybe.
There’s that saying that you can get used to anything? I never believed it to be true, but I suppose it is. I did. I got used to this new life. Most of the time at least. This weekend was rough though. I’m not even sure I can adequately put it into words. The best I can probably say, is there was a big storm. I made it out okay, but I felt a bit wrecked.
I’d forgotten what it was like to feel this bad. Maybe not really forgotten, but I’d pushed it far back. It’s hard to feel so alone. To feel so lonely and know that no one cares to hang out with you. To feel like you’ve lost everything. I spent a lot of time wishing I could turn back the clock this weekend. Wishing I could turn the clock back to a better time. A time where my house was always loud. A time where I was married. A time where my kids were always here. A time with friends to talk to and do things with. I miss that.
This weekend I missed that so much. This weekend my depression and anxiety beat me. This weekend I felt super sorry for myself. I was convinced that I’d always be alone. I’ve been through so much in the past few years and most of the time now, I feel like I have a handle on my life and on myself. I wish he could have just waited. Just given me more time to find my way.
This weekend I felt like I’d never be happy again. What can I say, I’m over dramatic when I have one of these moment. However, it happens.
Yesterday after completely loosing my shit and sobbing to one of my best friends for a good hour, I started to feel better. I still feel pretty wrecked though. Dumb too. I always feel like a dumb failure in the aftermath.
Last month at some point, I had a conversation with one of my friends. About how right now is just one chapter in our lives. It’s not the whole book. It may be a shitty chapter, yet eventually it will end. Then a new one will start.
I’m ready for that new chapter.
So my cousin, she says to me. It’s been a year. Over a year now. Are you going to try dating?There are great dating sites out there, maybe you should try one?
Um no, I answer. I’m not ready. I don’t care to date. I’m not sure I will ever care.
You know, ever is an extremely long time.
Yes, I know that. I’m just not even thinking about it yet. Can we talk about something else though? What school did Trevor pick?
The conversation easily changes when I bring up her son and his college goals. He’s a high school football champion, getting a full ride. Boy got offered six full rides. Anyway, we talk kids for the next 15 minutes and then we hang up.
A year. It’s been a year. I don’t….
Can I be honest? Are you guys okay with that?
I’m still in love with Logan. Not in the, I’d get back together with him, way. Nor in the, I’m sitting here pining away for something lost, type of way. Those ships have both sank. Dam icebergs.
Yet, I am still in love with him. I’ve never loved anyone else. I don’t know that I’m capable of moving past this. I don’t know how to date. I’ll be completely honest, it doesn’t interest me in the least right now. The thought of dating really hasn’t crossed my mind. Not in a positive way at least. The thought of trusting someone else? I can’t imagine that. He was all I have ever known. Maybe he was it for me.
I didn’t ask for him to leave me. I’d of stayed with him forever, no matter what. I have learned to live without him. Mostly. I’m still working on that in some ways. I have gotten stronger. I do what I want, when I want and how I want. He might have broken me though. Maybe I broke me. I’m not exactly sure yet.
However, I don’t know that I believe in marriage anymore. I don’t know that I’d ever want to do it again. Truly, I can’t imagine dating right now. Maybe I’m just not there yet. Maybe I’ll never be there. Does it matter? Do I fail life if I raise amazing kids and end up alone?
Some days I’m lonely. Some days I wish I had someone there when I went to bed and when I woke up. I had that though and it was amazing. How can anyone ever compete with what I thought I had? Would I ever want anyone too? I don’t have answers. Just tons of unanswered questions.
What I am sure of is this: I am not ready to talk about dating. I am not ready to date. If that means there is something wrong with me as a person, well we’ll just add it to the already long ass list.
I have never been one of those, stay home to watch TV people. Sure I have shows that I love. I always have. But even in pre-DVR days, I’d just set up my VCR to record a show. Remember those? VHS’s? Yeah, me neither. Ha. I’ve never cared if someone ruined a show for me. Hell, I read the end of books before the beginning and I ask about a movie before I’ve seen it. It just never mattered that much to me.
My one exception, to this day, was Charmed. I loved it. I watched it from episode one, for eight seasons. I stayed home to watch it. Something which made Logan laugh. I’d even set it to record each week. One, so I could watch it again. Two, just in case something came up. A sick baby. A long day at work. It happened. That show was my kryptonite and everyone knew it.
It was silly and un-realistic, but I loved it.
One night, say around season four, I missed it. I’d been working 14 hour days that week. I hadn’t seen Morgan in days, except to kiss her as I left and smooth her baby hair at night, long after she’d been asleep.
I’d recorded it, so I turned it on and got in bed to watch. 20 minutes in, the screen when blue. OMG LOGAN!!!!!!!! IT MESSED UP!!!!! The blue screen of death, the blue screen of death. HELP.
What am I supposed to do, he asked? It’s a TV show? I can’t do anything.
I cried. No joke. I cried. About a TV show. About nine zillion other things. About the stress of work and missing my baby. From lack of sleep. I cried for ten minutes, the whole time a blue screen was still running on my TV.
Yeah, then the show came back on. Logan, as a joke, had been in the room as the show was on. At a commercial, he’d stopped the recording, fast forwarded the tape ten minutes and then hit record again. All I missed was two commercials.
No other show has even come close to making me stay home to watch it. After that point, I stopped staying in to watch that one. I did however smack Logan upside the head for that one.
All I can say, is thank god for DVR’s. So….what about you all? Ever have a show that you stayed home to watch?
It’s late at night. We are in bed. Holding hands. Pondering quietly the reality that has smacked us squarely in the face. Neither of us speaks for nearly an hour. I listen to him breath. I play the evening over and over again in my mind. I wonder to myself, is this real. God, I hope this is real.
Finally he speaks. Well that happened fast, didn’t it?
Yeah, I guess it did, I responded.
So….we’re going to be parents then? Dam that’s rad.
Yeah, it is, huh?
*******************************
We were on vacation. 1992 maybe. I’d of been twelve that summer. Driving through Oklahoma. We’d stopped at Sonic, which he’d only mentioned about 73 times that day. Sonic. Jalapeno burgers. Cherry limeade. You could almost see it dancing in his eyes. His idea of heaven, if he were one to believe in such things.
We stopped at the first one we saw. We all ordered huge drinks and burgers. Chili cheese fries to share. We sat outside the car in the humid summer heat. The radio in the car was on. Turned to a silly country station, that he never would have normally made us listen too. Maybe it was Oklahoma that did it too him. Maybe it was Sonic. Who knows. My dad is an odd guy.
The moment was over before it really began.
He jumped up and started grabbing food and shoving it in the car in seconds. I didn’t recognize that look in his eyes. Get in the car now, he said. His voice was raised. He meant business. The man rarely raised his voice. We all got in the car. He drove away like a bat out of hell. He didn’t speak for 30 minutes.
We were all silent as well. No one said a thing, even though he was driving us back in the direction we’d just come from. Considering there were five of between 10 and 14 years old, this was a strange occurrence.
Eventually my step-mom broke the silence. What happened? Tornadoes, was his response. Headed our direction. The radio said tornadoes. More than one. Never again will I deal with tornadoes. Give me an earthquake any day.
It would have been funny, except it really wasn’t. On a vacation once, in Texas, my dad almost lost my mom because of tornadoes. She happened to be out shopping and she nearly died in a storm drain. It was about six months before they got pregnant with me. The town my grandparents lived in was over a third gone, after the tornadoes that day. Three major ones.
We will be going around Oklahoma today, was all he’d say.
***********************************
Family dinner. My family. His family. We’d ordered in. Mexican food. What? It wasn’t like I knew how to cook. Our new condo. It was the first time we’d had everyone there. There wasn’t enough seats for everyone, so a lot of people ended up sitting on the floor.
They believed it was to celebrate the condo. They’d brought us gifts. As we finished opening them, I got up and said, there is actually two more. Hold on one second. I went into our bedroom and came out with two gifts.
White satin wrapping. Purple and green ribbon. I remember that I’d spent an hour at some specialty shop in Beverly Hills, finding the prettiest paper I could find. I even made my friend Kate wrap them for me, because I wanted it to be perfect. One gift for his parents, one for my mom. Two picture frames.
Our butter bean in a frame. Ten weeks. Her first fuzzy photo. The frames said first grandchild.
**************************************
Same vacation. 1992. We’d been in Albuquerque the day before and had gone to Water World. I’d managed to step on a lit cigarette butt and had a blister the size of a fist on my foot. I have always been known for this type of thing. They should have just named me clumsy.
We were camping in Carlsbad. Had been swimming the night before. Every one told me to pop that blister, but I decided limping around was a better way to go. I didn’t want to miss walking down Carlsbad Caverns. I knew if I popped it, I’d not want to walk for days. See, I’d heard a rumor the night before, that Mario Lopez would be filming something at the bottom of the caves the next day. I wanted to meet him. Oh how I loved Saved by the Bell.
I was determined. I didn’t care how much it hurt. I did it anyway. Not because I cared about a silly cave. National monument? Who cares about that? I was twelve. I’d of rather been in a mall. Or at home, spending my days boogie boarding with my friends.
I could have cared less that it had an actual cafeteria at the bottom. I didn’t want to see bats. Or ride the weird elevator back to the top. Nope. I did it too see some cute famous boy.
Saw him too. Somewhere I even have a signed autograph. Totally worth the foot pain.
**********************************
She asked me last week if given the chance, would I take him back. For the first time in ten months, the answer was no. I’m not sure when the last time was that we’d had that conversation, but at the time the answer had been yes. Yes I’d of taken him back. Yes, I’d of tried again. Yes, I’d of forgiven him for everything. Yes, yes, YES!
I answered no last week. I meant it with ever fiber of my being. I can’t go backwards I said. I can only move forwards. I wouldn’t do that to myself, or to my children, not even if he begged. He wouldn’t mind you, but still, my answer to the question is now no. That door has been closed.
How things change. In January when he left, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to today. I thought that the pain of of it would just break my heart and I’d cease to exist. In that moment, I was even in denial. I’ve been through it all. All the stages of grief, some even a second round. The me back then, wouldn’t recognize the me today. The past year has been the darkest and hardest of my life. I’d like to lie to you and tell you otherwise, but it’s not true. There were days that I wouldn’t have made it without my best friends. They were like a life boat. My life boat. Holding on to me to keep me from sinking. I could spend the rest of my life thanking them and it wouldn’t be enough. I know it’s a silly line from a television show, but they are my people. They let me be me. They let me grieve. They let me process. They are my people.
There is a photo I have of my best friend Liz and I. It was taken in April at my friend Kirsten’s house, a few nights before my 30th birthday. I love that photo, because it is of us. However, I also don’t like it. Because when I look at it, I see how sad I was. How depressed I was. How completely emotionally exhausted I was at that time. I remember how I completely and fully fell apart a few days later. I see all of that in that photo. It’s my reminder of that time period in my life. There was nothing but sadness in my eyes, even though I’m smiling in the photo. Even though I know I had fun that night.
I had hoped that today, I’d feel better. That today, the day my divorce is final, I’d feel a sense of relief. I don’t. I’m sad. I have regrets. I wish things had been different. I can’t undo that.
We almost made it eleven years. It seemed long at the time. Maybe it was for a marriage that starts at nineteen years old. If you add in the five years we dated prior to marriage, it’s downright amazing. Or it was until it ended. He had half of my life. Half of my life was spent with him. I am 30 years old. I was with him at 14 years old. That’s just shocking to me.
I will be honest, I still don’t know who I am without him. I spent so long with him, that I guess this makes sense. I do know I will figure it out one day. Who I really am. I don’t have to know yet, I don’t have to know in a year. Because I am at least secure in the knowledge that I can survive without him. I wasn’t sure at first. Now I’m sure. I even am okay with being alone now. Not always mind you, but I can deal with it. I have time to figure out who I am.
I feel stronger though. Stronger than I have in a long time. Because I made it. I made it to here. I walked this walk, sometimes one tiny bitsy baby step at a time, and I made it. Today I am just me. The we is gone. Now I am just me. Every day, I feel a tiny bit stronger. I feel like I’m finally figuring out who I am again. The new me. The me that just relies on myself. The me that makes my own decisions. Some days it’s scary. A lot of days it is scary. But I get up each day and do it anyway.
It’s just a piece of paper with today’s date on it, this I know. But it’s the end. The final chapter in a life, my old life. Tomorrow starts a new life. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I do know I’m looking forward to it.
–I heard this song yesterday and it seemed kind of perfect for me.
Sara Evans, A little bit Stronger.
Woke up late today,
and I could still feel the sting of pain,
but I brushed my teeth anyway.
Got dressed through the mess, and
put a smile on my face.
I got a little bit stronger.
Riding in the car to work,
and I try to soothe all the hurt.
There’s a song on the radio,
stupid song made me think of you.
I listened to it for a minute,
but then I changed it.
I’m getting a little bit stronger.
Just a little bit stronger.
And I’m not hoping we can work it out.
I’m done with how I feel.
Spinning my wheels,
letting you drag my heart around.
And I’m not thinking you could ever change.
I know my heart will never be the same.
But I’m telling myself I’ll be OK,
even on my weakest day.
I get a little bit stronger.
It doesn’t happen overnight.
But you turn around and a months gone by,
and you realize you haven’t cried.
I’m not giving you an hour, or a second,
or another minute longer.
I’m busy getting stronger.
And I’m not hoping we could work it out.
I’m done with how I feel.
Spinning my wheels,
letting you drag my heart around.
And I’m not thinking you could ever change.
I know my heart will never be the same.
But I’m telling myself I’ll be OK,
even on my weakest day.
I get a little bit stronger.
Just a little bit stronger.
Getting along without you baby.
Better off without you baby.
How does it feel without me baby?
I’m getting stronger without you baby.
And I’m not hoping we could work it out.
I’m done with how I feel.
Spinning my wheels,
letting you drag my heart around.
And I’m not thinking you could ever change.
I know my heart will never be the same.
But I’m telling myself I’ll be OK,
even on my weakest day.
I get a little bit stronger.
Get a little bit stronger.
Just a little bit stronger.
Little bit, little bit, little bit stronger.
Get a little bit stronger.
The first time that I saw you, Lookin like you did We were young, we were restless, Just two clueless kids, If I knew then, what I know now, I’d fall in love.
Those are lyrics from a Lady Antebellum song. It’s a better verse than I could ever come up with.
In some ways it says everything I’ve been trying to write for hours. Days maybe.
Here’s the thing, if I knew then, what I know now? I’d still fall in love.
Today is my 11th anniversary. No matter what else is happening. Even though, I won’t make it to the 12th. We made it 11 years. We made it longer than most people who get married at 19 years old. We made a great little family, that doesn’t cease to exist, just because we aren’t together any more. Does that make me feel better today? Not really. But it doesn’t negate the fact that for the past 16 years, we’ve been mostly happy together. How many people can say that?
Today should be a celebration, but it’s not. I don’t want spend all day feeling the way I’ve felt for the past few days, but I find myself pretty much unable to stop it. I keep thinking about the last ten years of this day. I want to try and remember the good, try to remember the life that was great, instead of the end. Instead of what this day should be.
I’m going to at least try to not curl up in a ball and hide all day. I’ve already gotten up and showered, I’ve gotten coffee and a donut. I plan on buying some cake later, because cake makes everything better. Tonight? I’ll take my kids out for dinner and then come home and watch American Idol with my girls. It might not seem like much, but it’s enough. Today, it’s enough. Fake it, till you make it. Or something like that.
I’d still fall in love. If I was somehow able to go back in time, to see fourteen old me? I’d still ask him out. If I could go back and see eighteen year old me? I’d still ask him to marry me. I don’t regret my life, I don’t regret our life, but I can’t change what it is now either.
Happy 11th anniversary to me.
Cause love only comes once in awhile, Knocks on your door and throws you a smile, And takes every breath, Leaves every scar, Speaks to your soul, And sings through your heart, And if I knew then, what I know now, Whoaa if i knew then, what I know now, I’d fall in love.
Say you meet a great guy in high school. He quickly becomes one of your best friends and your boyfriend, all at once. You have fun together, you can tell him anything. A few years go by. Mostly fun times, some crappy ones. But your constant is each other. Always, you have each other. You get engaged and get married all in your first year of college. You lose a friend to suicide, gain a spouse and a condo, all in one very crazy year.
A few years after that, you have your first baby; a ridiculously adorable little girl. You work your ass off. Nine, ten, sometimes twelve or fourteen hour days. To make a better life for your family. You finish college, go on vacations. You celebrate holidays, watch your baby girl grow. You do this together.
Everything is better because you have that person. The person you joke with in tense times. The person who makes you happy. The person who lets you cry and stress out. You have inside jokes, you play air hockey, you stay up after your daughter goes to bed, just laughing and watching TV. You start to plan farther ahead in life. You dream out your life together.
One day, a couple years later, you have another, ridiculously adorable little girl. You’re happy; happy with your life, happy with your spouse, happy with your crazy baby girls. You upgrade your life a bit: sell your condo and buy a house, buy new cars. Nothing you can’t handle. None of that really matters though. What matters are that man and little girls you come home too every night. Everything you do, is to make a better life for them.
You start to get burned out on the hours of work. You see your husband and girls very little and you literally can watch them age before your eyes. You miss out on the small things. Things like your baby’s first steps. The first time your oldest rides a tricycle without training wheels. The first time your four year old uses crap correctly in a sentence. The time your baby “warshes” your camera in the toilet. (What? It’s not all good stuff.) You start to live for your vacation time.
One day, your husband comes to you and says that he has a dream of something better. A better life. A great career for him, less of one for you. A move halfway across the country. You look at this man, this man you adore, your best friend and you say hell no. You see the hurt in his eyes. You look around and you think about the life you are living. The crazy schedules, the hours spent in an office of a high rise, the outrageous amount of money you are about to plop down for private kindergarten, what you are missing out on and you say yes. Let’s do it. You move.
Then life gets a little tricky. Bad things happen. Loss, depression, crappy times. You tell yourself it will get better. You will get better. Things will be okay, because you have him, your love, your best friend, your constant. You get a unexpected surprise in the form an amazing baby boy. Unexpected, but none the less, adored. You start to think, hey maybe somehow this will work; this move, this dream, this new life.
One day you wake up to find that you lost everything while you weren’t looking. That you are loosing your husband and it’s too late to change it. That you maybe lost him years ago, even though he’s been next to you that whole time. Somehow you blinked and missed it. The sad part is, you are not just loosing a spouse. You are loosing your very best friend in this world. You have lost that life you thought you had. The happy home, the happy family, the dream. In one fell swoop, your life, the one you helped build? Is gone. Pieces of it are still there, but it’s different. Broken. Shattered even. You then start to pick up the pieces, because in reality, life moves on. It’s the only thing that can be done.
But inside? You are still shattered. You’ve lost. The promise of forever is gone. The dreams of one more baby, watching your kids grow together, vacations around the world, renewing vows at twenty years, buying an RV and traveling the US after the kids go to college? Dreams that no longer exist.
That life is gone. What’s left now is heartache. Pain. Shattered dreams. Unknowing. And three little kids who still have to be raised.
On March 3rd, 11 years ago, we said forever. We stood together in front of our friends and family and together, we promised forever. 11 years. That was our forever.
Forever? I suppose it’s just something that people say. Just a word we throw out there. Something we think we mean, until we don’t.
Forever.
I can look at things from all sides. Generally.
Some days though I have a real hard time seeing the positive in anything. I am not the world is ending type. I don’t believe in the 2012 hype. I don’t believe that California is going to fall into the ocean. I don’t worry about the polar ice caps melting and us all being frozen alive. At least not in my lifetime. I don’t worry about dying for some reason. Probably a good thing too.
No, it’s the smaller things that I worry about. The things that I have no real ability to control. I wouldn’t say I’m a pessimist. I am close though. Maybe a pessimist with optimistic moments?
I am the girl who envisions car crashes. I get nervous when anyone else is driving but me. When I get a phone call from someone I haven’t talked to in forever, I assume the worst. I have this weird theory that if I think about all the possibilities, it won’t happen. I think about possible injuries before I even do something. I picture in my mind how I will deal with it. I don’t worry about things as I am doing them, just before.
What can I say? I’m an over thinker. I think about conversations that are going to be awkward, before they happen. I think abut everything the other person could say and how I could respond to make it easier. Doesn’t always work, but I try.
I am the mom who doesn’t watch her kids climb on playground equipment, because if I watch I envision the worst. I sit there on my phone, or watch other kids. I am the mom who holds onto her kids shirts on mountain adventures. If I am holding their shirt, they won’t fall off the cliff that is 35 feet away. I *may* be a bit of a control freak.
Climb a mountain? No. Dive off a high dive? Heck no. Sky dive? ARE YOU INSANE!!!
The thing is, despite this, I enjoy life. I do. I have fun. I am not afraid to try new things. I just know that there are certain things I will never do. This won’t make sense, but I’d love to para sail, even though I’m afraid of heights, but I’d never even consider bungee jumping.
Where this really comes into play is when something happens, where I have no control, I freak first, think later.
Last week and for the few weeks prior my husband and I were having major communication issues. All we did was fight. He couldn’t seem to talk to me without starting an argument. As time wore on, I was convinced it was me. I was convinced he didn’t love me anymore. That he wanted to divorce me.
Like I said, I freak first, think later.
The truth is so far from what I thought. Unfortunately this is where I stop talking about it. I know that sounds like a cop out and for that I’m sorry. But my husbands personal issues are his story to tell, not mine and he doesn’t want them shared on here. He’s okay though, just having some issues that he needs to figure out. He didn’t know how to talk to me about it, which just made it seem so much worse.
I wanted to apologize to you all. I am sorry if I worried all of you. I am a freaker. I am a pessimist. I was scared. I thought something and it clouded my world for a few days. It turned out to be not true. Although, since I’m not a mind reader (my crystal ball seems to be defective) it was hard to know what the heck was going on. Thank god it wasn’t what I thought. What we have to deal with, what is going on with Logan is fixable. Deal-able.
I couldn’t have fixed what I thought was the problem. I couldn’t have fixed him not loving me anymore. Luckily I don’t have to try.
You know that show with the people who collect everything under the sun? They are…dam what’s the word. Oh yes, hoarders. Which I guess is a nice word for pack rat. They even have a show now on TLC called Hoarders. The experts (experts in what, I have no idea) go into the persons house and help them see that they have a problem. Then they help clean out the house. Or this is the gist of the show, from the commercials on it that I’ve seen.
I am not a hoarder, not by any means. However, I remember how much stuff we donated when we move here. Things like an entire box of Simpson’s figurines. **cough *Logan* cough**
We have some weird things that we choose to save. I thought you guys might get a kick out of hearing some of these.
Cards. I save birthday cards and Christmas cards. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Since I was 10 years old. I can’t even tell you why I keep them, but I do. I literally moved a box of them when we came to Colorado.
Pez dispensers. My husband has a thing with Pez dispensers. My brother does too. I don’t get it. I never have. We have more than I want to admit. When Morgan was a baby, we had a bunch of them attacked by ants. Logan killed each ant and then replaced the ones that had been infested. The only good thing about this, was he started keeping them in big Tupperware bins and not needing to display them. Oh yes, they used to be displayed. It was wrong.
Music. Logan has this issue with not giving away CD’s, even though we will never listen to them. Even though we don’t exactly know why we own things like Hanson, Tupac or the Spice Girls.
Books. This one is me. Even if I hated a book, I can’t seem to give it away. We have bookshelves and bookshelves full of books. I will almost never let the girls buy a toy at Target, but god forbid they want a book. They always get it. They know my weakness. You may think I’m joking on not giving away books. I have an entire box full of Baby-Sitter’s Club books. Another of Sweet Valley High. It’s bad.
Glasses. We own more dishes than one needs to own. I have two sets of china, a set of dishes that we use every day, a set of Christmas dishes and dishes that we use at BBQ’s. However, more than that, we collect cups. And mugs. And cool glasses. I have a weakness for cool cups. In Vegas in September I saw a set of glasses that I wanted at the Coca-Cola store. I didn’t buy them there, since I didn’t want to carry them home…or back to the hotel. What? It was 106 degrees. Anyway, when I got home, I ordered them off the Internet. I heart them. I already want more.
Coasters. This one is Logan. Although, I seriously do own the coaster that my great-grandmother sewed. We also have the cork ones. The picture ones, because everyone should put a glass on their kids smiling face. The character ones…Simpsons, Muppets, M&M’s are the ones I can name off the top of my head. The heavy ceramic ones that we had to put away, because Harrison is likely to throw them at the dog. We have the wood ones, from that one place, where we went that one time. Yeah, he has a reason for keeping them all. Funny enough, I rarely use the dam things.
Movie/concert/plane tickets. I have every ticket from the time I was 12 years old. Some day I want to make something cool with them. Someday. You know? One of those days.
Okay, that’s all I’m admitting too. I can’t be the only one who is two steps away from being featured on the show Hoarders. What’s your thing? What do you have that you can’t seem to get rid of?
Grab My Button!
I’m a joiner
