Unpacking An Attitude

Guess what I did part of this weekend?

Unpacked. And it fucked me off for the first little while as I wailed from my soapbox about how awful it was blah, blah, blah.

Then I gave my head a shake, determined to view it in a positive light. Beer helped. It made the whole task feel a bit like moving into a new apartment in university minus the pompasan chair and bong.

I tried to get excited by the fact that I actually can live without the collection of kitchen gadgets that have roosted in my drawers for years. Before, I was loathe to throw anything away convinced that SOMEWHERE down the road, I would once again need that gizmo from the Pampered Chef® that made sealed, crustless peanut butter and jelly pockets, which I had used EVERY meal with abandon while Olivia went through her finicky stage. But when you are defeated, slightly hacked off and sliding towards apathy, it is easy to toss away the superfluous.

I was forced to ask myself questions like:

**Do I really need the steamer that my granola-eating, tree-hugging, self-help-reading, Birkenstock-wearing mum bought for me years ago? It takes an hour to soften carrots, whistles "hee-hee-hee" like a woman in labour and is impossible to clean. I decided that it would be more at home in the rubbish bin, nestled beside the juicer, than back in my cupboard.

**What about my collection of cheap Wal-Mart bud vases? Back when I was a single parent, I went through this Helen Reddy, "I Am Woman" phase where I had the unmedicated notion to be good to myself by buying fresh flowers for my home each week.

Lots and lots and lots of them. I decided that they didn't need unpacking and thus began the theme of the weekend:

Purge, cleanse and repair.

I unpacked some boxes and packed others with items that would go to the local shelter. Books, toys, dishes and linens filled my car and when I dropped everything off, I felt lighter. I took the opportunity to organize closets and tackle one of my junk drawers. We cleaned the garage out. Dallas pruned, weeded and mulched the front flower bed. We went to Lowes and purchased everything that we needed to scrape, prime and paint our front door. We bought a power washer. It was remarkably satisfying work.

Last week, once the dust settled from our Florida trip and after we'd made the decision not to move, there was a slow but perceptible shift in our attitude. Dallas and I share a wanderlust gene and the prospect of moving to Florida tapped into that primal need for change and adventure that we seem to require along with food, water and Harley Davidson. But the truth was that neither of us really wanted to make the move and we had suppressed those feelings since April because we really felt that relocating was the responsible thing to do for our family. Once things changed, we began to look at our life with new eyes.

Instead of focusing on the peeling paint in the bathrooms or the broken blinds in Dylan's room, we walk into our house grateful for the layout, the space and the reasonable mortgage payment. All of those repair and maintenance tasks that were good enough to complete for new tenants but on the back burner for us have been placed on the immediate "to do" list. We were behaving like renters in our own home. Not anymore.

We drive the roads of Northwest Arkansas marveling at how gorgeous the scenery is and how light the traffic. Manchild spent the day with us yesterday and the luxury of remaining near him eased all of the paralyzing fears that we had been choking on for the last couple of months. And our friends. My god, we would have missed them. I can't express how happy I am that our communication will be more than emails and Christmas cards.

The events of the last couple of weeks while jarring, have served to clarify exactly what is important to us and therein lies the silver lining to the whole debacle. Our life, as it exists right this second, is pretty damn great.