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 […]
Physically and emotionally hung-over from hauling estate boxes yesterday, I dragged myself back to the job today. Acutely aware of my fatigue, I opted to do nothing. Yes, that’s right, do nothing. I literally slept for five hours, during and beyond the time we had allocated for work. A day of respite from this ambitious […]
We moved Joe and Marg boxes from the Box Room to basement shelving today. These papers, books, and letters from their lives were boxed up at my family home prior to their November move to my home. For me, the words of their lives is what is hardest to let go, much harder than their […]
It helps to imagine a brighter future when you’re feeling swamped, as I am with these boxes! Today we begin to work on the Box Room (named so because this is where we’ve consolidated the estate boxes that were moved from my family home on November 13, 2013). We will spend the next nine organizing […]
Feeling exhausted and worn-out, I’ve continued to move forward with the help of three. My beloved Karl, and organizers Edith and Hillary have carried us out of the basement project (FTD Trauma 2007-2009) and into the upstairs project (estate management 2013-2014). This week we worked to clear the guest room and prepare the sun room […]
It is February 15 and we are 1/3 of the way through a 3-month organizing project (scheduled 1/15 – 4/15) to resurrect contents of my FTD (Frontotemporal Degeneration)-life-trauma 2007-2009. Originally, the primary goal was to unpack and clear boxes from 2009, stored for the last five years in our basement. The process in 13 sessions […]
After four straight days of organizing I feel wiped-out physically, mentally, and emotionally. The process of clearing boxes in our basement stored from traumatic years of my life (2007, 2008, and 2009) has felt like I am both the patient suffering an invasion-of-body as well as the doctor making the decisions/incisions. We reached a major […]
We continue to unpack boxes from the years 2007, 2008, and 2009, stored for the last five years in our basement. Items like this tupperware container and travel-mug are easy to integrate into the now. These items are practical and hold no trauma triggers from the past. Upon unpacking this kind of stuff, I can […]
The grief process is a funny business. So very sad am I to again accept the fact that my parents are dead, as I write with love their first names on post-it notes and stick them on the wall. Today I spent solo-session time (unexpected because of a major snow storm, 3 hours) creating meta-labels […]
Being intentional about re-creating my life (after 10 years of parent-care) isn’t without pain. The room pictured here was previously my father’s reading room; we are now transforming the room into our own study. All of the furniture is from my family home (moved November 2013). The books today placed in the cabinet have been […]
