My mom has recently been taking on the task of cleaning out my dad's old office. This is not your traditional, movie-set office built out of rich mahogany and lined with leather-bound books. My father's basement dwelling featured an array of old desks, random tables, very old radios, rolled up rugs, kids' beds, boxes, shelves...you name it. And he is an "organized chaos" type, meaning that he has stacks of papers here, there, and everywhere, and what's in the stacks doesn't necessarily make sense. For instance, we've found old birthday cards, co-worker resumes, and brochures for Florida vacations mixed amongst financial statements from companies in California. It made sense to him, I guess.
My mom would prefer to have a bulldozer come into the room and plow everything away. She has taken the more prudent approach of at least looking through the papers and shredding documents with account numbers or other important info. But otherwise she's basically shoving everything into garbage bags and saying goodbye.
I'm not one to cause a fuss or impede important progress, but it makes me a little mad that she's not necessarily recycling all this paper. Last week, I came up with the plan to quietly start taking papers with me and recycling them at my apartment building. My mom caught me yesterday afternoon, and I'm not sure she appreciated my efforts. I received a series of guilt-laden lines like:
"Okay, Ted, if it will make you feel better, I'll dig through those bags in the garage and make sure all the paper gets recycled."
"Well, if it will help you sleep at night..."
Sigh. My relationship with my mom has changed quite a bit since my dad's death, and I don't take it very well when she's upset. Or mockingly upset. I know she's just giving me crap because all she wants to do is get the house clean so she can sell it, and she doesn't want to deal with things like recycling paper.
But I do, dammit. At least a little bit.
A few years ago...
Yeah, I've been working out.
Now Reading
"The Last Man" by Brian K. Vaughn
Now Listening To
"Trading Twilight for Daylight" by Great Northern
Last Saw
"No Country For Old Men"
4 comments:
I'm not going to tell you how to feel, or how to react, because nothing has ever pissed me off more than when people did that after Hansel died. However, I do kind of take your moms' side on this one...when it was me, I just wanted that stuff gone. Even the smallest, most trite piece of paper could cause grief. So I guess to me, recycling was really kind of the last thing on my mind.
But again, I'm not you and I'm not your mom, so please don't be mad at me for saying that.
Oh, dear. I have to disagree with Amber. I appreciate that you are trying to at least take it away and recycle it. At least she isn't dealing with it more than she has to either way, and your way at least it's helping a little.
I can come get it, too.
Also after Douglas died I wanted everything gone within the first six months, but I ended up throwing everything including his clothes into some plastic bins and storing it. After a year or so I could go through it, and I was glad I kept it. So to each their own, I guess. Your mom is in a goddamn hard place, but maybe we can all find it in ourselves to still be good citizens when we are in a hard place.
I'm not mad, Amber. "Mad" may have been a bit of a strong word as used in my post. I didn't mean for this to come across as a right-or-wrong argument. If she started a fire tonight and began tossing papers in, I wouldn't blame her one bit.
Hmm...I might run that idea by her. What pisses her off more than anything is sitting next to the shredder and pushing papers through. Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzz.
To each their own is more my feeling, although I do believe there is some stuff amongst the piles that she should definitely keep.
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