Mid-way through this 3-month project I am feeling the fatigue of it. I’ve booked a mid-March 10-day get-away to New Mexico, a respite I hope will melt the winter off my back and restore my spirit. That said, we continue to make excellent progress managing what has been an overwhelm of life-trauma and estate-related material goods. I provide a brief summary below of the good news.

Trauma Boxes

2007-2009 Dementia-Care Trauma is Contained
From January 15 to February 15 we opened mystery boxes in our basement that hadn’t been touched for seven years. We reduced 75% of the mystery storage, either donating or integrating the easy contents. The remaining 25% of the boxes will be sorted at a later time, due to their heavy emotional contents.

Joe’s Life

Margaret’s Life

Mary’s Life

Roots Cellar Created
Joe, Marg, and Mary boxes have been sunk to the basement for much later sorting; they are now stored together on adjacent shelving and palettes; as a whole, this creates a manageable time-capsule similar to the “trauma 2007-2009” category. This roots-cellar will keep well, but also invite me to review its contents before season’s end (season length TBD).

Sun Room with Estate Boxes

Wardrobe Boxes

The Sun Room becomes Estate-Triage Central
Easy-to-unload Misc. boxes (wardrobe, pillows, towels, tissues, lamps, decor, kitchen, books, technology) have been moved to the sun room and soon will be sorted. I expect the boxes in this room to disappear by mid-April, because we will either integrate the contents into the home or donate the contents to charity.

The Box Room v2

The Box Room with a View
Over the course of six hours (2 separate days this week) we achieved a clearing in the Box Room that allows for a better view through the windows (it’s snowing today), and the ability to walk to the first window and open it (we’ll look forward to that on a more spring-like day). The boxes in the room are now better organized into the categories: art supplies, art, antiques, and family history; these will be future summer and fall projects. The energy of the Box Room feels more hopeful; we are making progress; this project will have an end.

Moving forward with a listening heart,
vision, inquiry, and action,
~ Mary

This post is part of the series: Transforming Trauma, Becoming Whole.
Please read “40+ Days of Desert Practice” for the series description and background.