Things I've given up...

My mother today actually suggested in passing that the clutter in the living room of our apartment is my fault. I will give her that – the boxes that are lined up against the wall are mine. The clutter, however, is composed of the four tables and multitude of vases and plants and Beanie Babies, etc., that she could not give up when they moved up here. I realize she left a lot of stuff behind, including a patio filled with beautiful plants and flowers. I know this move was hard on her as she is the unmovable block – easier to bring the mountain to Muhammad rather than the other way around.

However, I found myself almost in tears as I reminded her that I have pretty much nothing left of my old life. I had a beautiful, glorious 1,500 sq. ft. apartment that had a loft that I adored. I had furniture. I had chairs and couches and places to put things. I had drawers and a chest of drawers and a beautiful antique armoire. I had closets for my clothes and an office filled with, okay, his stuff but still. I had a life, complete with all the accoutrements.

What do I have now? A single bedroom. The living room, dining room and kitchen are all filled with my parents’ life. The pictures on the walls in the hallway? My parents’. The books on the shelves and the photographs throughout are my parents’. Everything I own, everything that I am, has been winnowed down to a single, tiny bedroom. I have stuff in boxes because there simply isn’t anywhere left to put things. And, at this point, I cannot bring myself to throw one more tiny piece of paper away.

I guess I never realized that when I walked away from him, I walked away from my life. |A life we had spent almost 18 years building. A familiar life, a comfortable life. Although, in that life, I had very little as well. Pictures were put up where he wanted them, despite my many arguments. The bookcases filled with books were his. I had about 10 little shelves on the dozen bookcases we had. I had a desk in the loft to work at, he had the whole office.

But now that life has been cut down even more to this tiny room with way too much stuff. And I can’t find half the stuff I want because it’s either jammed into a corner somewhere or buried in a box where I haven’t found it yet.

I thought my new life would include room for me. But I’m still living in someone else’s space, with someone else’s rules. I have to shoehorn my life into the space I’m allowed because that’s all I get.

And for now, there’s not much I can do about that. But it makes me very sad to think about all the things I left behind and all the things I’ve given up over these two years and all the things I’ll never get back. I’m still trying to build my new life within the confines I am offered and it’s a struggle some days, like today.

Maybe that’s why my vision of the future is so appealing and I have to keep that in front of me. That beautiful house/condo/whatever it is with the 20 foot ceilings and the piano that I know is mine and the furniture that I know WE picked out together and knowing that there is a room somewhere in that building that is just mine, with my stuff in it, where I want my stuff to be. And the person singing in the other room doesn’t care if he has exactly as many photos out of his family as of mine. That comes naturally. The space is ours, with room for both of us to have our own space and room for us to have our space together. And there is room to breathe and to grow and to have the life that I had hoped to create when I left that other confining, suffocating life behind. I hope in five years I am there, because I’m not sure I can hold my breath that long.