I was back at it today, emptying cardboard boxes that have moved with us from Oklahoma to North Dakota, California to New Mexico, then to South Carolina, only to end up here, some of them unmolested for most of those journeys, other than to open, note, and rebox with a new year written on the cardboard. I found a ridiculously heavy "vase" I made when I first learned to throw pottery on a wheel. I set it outside, and said we can store gardening tools in it. It's only a foot tall, but it's so solid that I could stand a rake in it and it would never tip over. It was packed with a soup tureen that came from my grandparents' house. It had an electric component that is long since gone, an odd vestigial plug the only sign of its former usefulness. I've never used it, but I don't feel like I can give it away. I put it in the highest reaches of my kitchen, in the cabinets far above the sink, where I can only reach it with a stepladder. I have no idea whether it will be used in my lifetime.
I tried to focus on the tangle of my craft room. I unpacked a few bags of fabric, utilizing a vintage dresser that I'd left alone until now. (I can't reserve good storage space for no reason, when I have needs...) I found a few pieces I'd wondered about, and hope to use soon, once everything is organized. I tried to clean and straighten my sewing kit, and spent more than an hour just picking out the scattered pins and black beads that were dumped in the top tray years ago. I tried to file away the mound of embroidery floss I found, and ended up overflowing the large container where I already held more than I expect to use in the next decade. I have so much in this room, I'm starting to think my only way to make it all worthwhile is to open an Etsy store and make a new thing every day to sell. Maybe if there's money involved, I'll actually use this three-generations'-worth of doo-dads.
I still don't know how to process the other box I emptied. I had a giant pile of "sentimental clothing" that included some of the costumes I made when we were in a Renaissance LARP group, a couple pieces of kid clothes that the girls wore, and some of my clothes. The costumes were weird enough. I can still sort of get one or two things on, but man, they look goofy to me now. The jeans from my college and young adulthood--that's a whole different story. Holy shit they were small. I know I don't swear a lot here, but you have to understand, I thought I was a monster. I thought I was so fat. Yet when I shook out jeans I wore even after I had kids, making them look like a person was standing in them, and realized how small a thirty inch waist looks now, that made my heart hurt. I've spent about eight hours brooding over it. I punished myself for being fat. I avoided social situations. I refused compliments. I stayed home. I didn't let myself do fun things that "skinny" people did, like dancing or horseback riding, or whatever. When I was a teenager, especially between sixteen and nineteen, I starved myself, and often. I'd go days barely eating anything. The longest was five days. Sophomore year in college, I convinced myself that eating nothing but a tablespoon of Grape Nuts in a day was okay, because it provided enough protein to keep me running. I can still look at pictures from that time and see the self-hate on my face. Eating disorders are very real, and very complex. One does not lose them simply because one gets older and fatter. Many of those same emotions and hangups are still with me, to this day. I don't know how much energy I can divert to dealing with it, what with everything else that is going on with my health. This is why it has taken until nearly three in the morning for me to finish writing tonight. That, and searching through my parents' Facebook photos trying to find a specific photo that I never could find, from that Grape Nuts period of my life. Instead, I found one I don't recall ever seeing before. I recognize the sweater and the sunglasses, so I can date it, but I don't know why it exists. I can see everything that girl is thinking about herself, though.
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