SquarePeg Books

I’d had it. I’d lost my damn mind.

My children each have their own rooms. My husband has a 12×20 cave that barely holds all of his stuff. He also has a 2×6 table and associated space in the front room for his small medical things because there’s no room in his Superfund site to accommodate the need to make a habitual space for his daily medical routine. A laptop has since been setup on that table (For reference he has working two laptops in his cave, a working desktop, a file server, a firewall and a test LAN – all functioning but it’s “not relaxing” to be in there when he’s not down there for telecommuting to work.). As well as notes for an RPG that he’s putting together for the kids and their cousins to be played “sometime” this summer.

I have hidey-holes under furniture, and work ares behind couches in a high traffic room, or sandwiched between the hot water heater and the furnace.

I live with three hoarders.

In the beginning of May, I spent a few hours sewing in the utility room and my back decided to point out that my parts warranty against things like working in a slightly slanted position, had expired.

My low back and pelvic girdle have been messed up since then, despite rest, exercise, massage, chiropractic work and pain meds. After a month of non-stop localized pain and x-rays, I was referred to physical therapy to start in the second week of June.

I lost my shit at the end of May.

When you’re in constant pain that’s anywhere between ‘moderate, but still functional”  all the way to “laying on the bed and praying for death”, your ability to suppress every issue, every slight, every moment of thoughtless inconsideration that you’ve silently let slide in order to keep the peace,  goes into the shitter.

On a good back day I closed down the utility room as a workspace – a good back day means I was in pain, but I could still physically function, so long as I didn’t try to break any speed or lifting records, I could do it (I did over extend myself anyway, though, which is how I discovered enough alcohol will make the pain tolerable while nothing works).  Since the slant in the floor leading to the drain was too much for my back to handle, then it simply wouldn” do as a workspace. Storage, yes, Work? No.

It was more than a little depressing. And it enraged me. How was it that I always have to sacrifice almost everything I want and need for everyone else, but no one is will show me the same courtesy a. Single. Damn. Time?

Then I took out my aggression on the rest of the house – there’s simply too much crap we do not use – large things, medium things (a massive amount of small things, but I can’t force anyone to get rid of any of it – all I can do is make it massively uncomfortable for them to have it – “Find a spot in your room to keep it or get rid of it because you can’t leave it in the communal areas anymore.” ) I made three truck loads of donations to Goodwill in two days. (This would be how I over-extended myself. Rage can be a great motivator, but it also tends to suppress messages for the body like “ouch”, “owie”, and “fucking hell!”.

There have been tears from the younger hoarders – one had a massive temper tantrum for more than an hour over a preschool-sized  heavy-duty table and chair set we’ve had for 8 years – to which I’ve been less than empathetic about. I don’t care about how difficult this is for you? How about you try living in this house without a room of your own. How about you get rid of projects you want to finish but can’t because there’s no room to even work? How about you try getting rid of things you don’t want to get rid of because there isn’t any room to keep them, but no one else is willing to give up a single shred of paper?

These were not pleasant or even fair things to say to a 10 year old. Especially not a 10 year old who has learned by example from his father and grandmother that hoarding is an okay thing, so long as it’s kept organized or to specific rooms. My one saving grace is that I haven’t gone through their rooms to excise toys I know they don’t use.

He begged me to get a storage unit.

No. I will not become that person. I will not spend that kind of money, every month, to keep things we do not use. Absolutely not. Those places are too much of an “out of sight, out of mind” excuse to not deal with shit.

My husband’s been promising for 15+ years to get me a shed so I can have a space of my own.

That, obviously, has not happened. There’s always something else that the money needs to go for. There’s always a bill, a repair, a need to keep our savings account at a specific level because of “maybes”, a something that’s more important than getting my own space.

Brandon saw me lose my shit. He watched me haul out trash bag after trash bag of projects I’d given up on because there was no space to work on or store the finished product in. He gave me a hurried promise before going back downstairs to his cave to work that he would start cleaning it to open up more space in the rest of the house for me.

He’s made that promise so many times, and nothing has ever come of it. He might spend an hour or two, shifting pile A over to location X, or sorting through pile B that gets added to pile C. But we’re talking about a man who still has a Comodore 128 system that I know he hasn’t fired up in more than 20 years but refuses to get rid of.

So, I lost it.

“We’re going to use the money from when insurance totaled my car and get a shed, no later than September,” I told him. “You’re never going to clean your office enough to move your medical spot out for me to work in. You won’t even shred your own documents, so I know you’re not gonna organize shit.”

He sighed. “Yeah,” he admitted slowly. “And even if I did, that area up here wouldn’t be enough for you to work in.”

We started discussing size. Of course a 12×20 is my first choice, but I’ll settle with a 10×10 with a loft. Room to work and stash my supplies.

I’m not sure if he agreed with my demand in order to keep the piece because my temper has been on a hair trigger, or if he just finally accepted “we are being really unfair to her”, but either way, I’m not letting him wiggle out of it this time.