Saturday, August 9, 2014

Kid Stuff

This day has been relentless. It started with gardening (which is slightly less "ugh" when every muscle isn't screaming from some day-before muscular workout). Then it segued into school shopping for my (rather entitled) teenager. Usually I resist her "needs", but she's about to start high school, so I gave in. With a proviso.

She got Nikes and Uggs and Lulu Lemons and Roots. (Until I became a parent, I never understood how anyone could spend so much fucking money on someone - other than herself...)

See, my kid is a hoarder from way back. She gets it from her father. Over the summer, however, she's put a ton of effort into remodeling her bedroom. She's fixed the plaster walls and painted. She drew and then painted a mural (of the Versace Medusa) - yes, I allowed this in the name of artistic expression. She's chosen all new furniture from IKEA (which we'll visit soon). The theme is 80s black and white.

But that child has clothing from grade 6 pushed into the back of her wardrobe. Who are we kidding - grade 4. She has every American Girl product that was ever made. She has never thrown out one piece of plastic jewelry she's ever been given. Did I mention that we could build a viable suspension bridge with her hair ties?

Y'all know I am as opposite to this as a human being could be. My every piece of clothing is folded perfectly and stored by weight and colour. I abhor clutter. I can barely stand my house right now, truth be told, between the basement (the fire hazard that is my husband's zone of hoarding) and all of the things that have fallen apart over the winter. I realize this is a terribly first-world problem, but I cannot understand how I work my ass off to ensure that I am not beholden to things and my family members thwart me at every turn. And they touch the walls with their grimy hands.

But back to the bargain. Today I agreed to spend a paycheck on teenage-style luxury goods in return for a true purge of the child's room. It was almost easy to gain her acquiescence, really, because she cannot stand what her room has become. She's spent 14 years digging in to avoid doing what I want and it's resulted in a prison for her.

So, today, after gardening and spending and negotiating, M and I came home and we cleaned. Oh, we cleaned for hours. We threw out so much stuff that most of it is still in bags in her closet (which we haven't even scratched the surface of, Lord help me) because we couldn't fit it into our outside bin.

Usually, I parse out everything and prepare stuff for the lawn and put stuff in batches for my sister's kids. I couldn't even bring myself to go there. It was all we could do to throw shit away (even as my eco-self was horrified). Much of it was in terrible shape or totally cheap and hideous (as is the way when your kid starts shopping for herself). Some of it has been left in the closet (for the next purge, next weekend) so I'll have to consider how to clean and repurpose that stuff.

What amazes me - and likely what would amaze my friends - is that her room was a pit of detritus but it didn't impact any part of the rest of the house. I backed off a couple of years ago, resigned to wait until she leaves home in adulthood before reclaiming and clearing the space. I couldn't stand the fighting. That child and I have fought over just about everything, it seems. I no longer have the will. I'm a hormonal mess, for fuck's sake.

At any rate, sometimes we join forces. And today, as we struggled in tandem, I realized I was doing the yeoman's work - the mother's work. We would never have been there, soaked in sweat, overwhelmed, if M had agreed to let go of things little by little. But even though it's an azure-skied Saturday in August, even though I would have thought I'd have been compelled to say "I told you so", I worked and cajoled. I calmed and problem-solved. And we got somewhere.

Then the wine opener broke as I was half way through uncorking a (well-deserved) 40-dollar Amarone. Needless to say, don't talk to me about letting go.

19 comments:

  1. Good luck with the purging. My son is a hoarder, but luckily we have to move every couple of years meaning he is forced to purge. I'm amazed at how much I have gotten used to having less items. I am my mothers on vacation, and she has 25 years worth of house in her house, and it is driving me insane. I am almost convinced that if I covertly start donating items, she'll never know.

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    1. She will never know. That's the scary thing!

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  2. Such wisdom in letting your daughter have that space. That impresses me more than anything else here, especially since what happens in there is so obviously challenging to your natural tendencies. If she doesn't already, someday she will see what a gift that room-autonomy is.
    I wish she'd let you show us the mural she painted on our wall -- she sounds like a pretty cool, creative, strong-willed and sharp-minded kid. Not surprisingly, apple, tree, and all that . . . (did you just push the damn cork in and drink that beautiful wine anyway?!)

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    1. I wish I could say it's wisdom. Really, it's weariness. I will take a pic of the mural cuz it's pretty amazing. I mean, it's not my thing but I might keep it even when she leaves home, because it's an original.

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    2. And I did push in the cork.

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    3. Good for you on the cork -- I've done that myself once or twice.
      Don't agree with your dismissal of your wisdom. I think wisdom is revealed in weariness -- what we default to really shows our foundational values, no? I'd love to see the mural if you ever get to sharing it, but I also get that she might not want the world seeing her bedroom wall.

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    4. Oh, I don't think she'd mind about the bedroom wall. She's quite an artiste :-) And, ok, I'll go with the notion that wisdom is revealed in weariness. Cuz that implies I'm a freakin' sage! :-)

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  3. Boy, does this sound familiar. 13 yr old DS's room is a pit - bothers DH more than me as I have packrat tendencies. However, DS wants a double bed and quid pro quo will be to rid his room of toys, books and games that haven't been touched in 2-3 years. Like you, expect that parents will do most of the work.

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    1. In some ways I'm doing most of the work but I think the hard work is hers. I have no problems getting rid of everything. She loves to keep.

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  4. Welcome to high school with a female child! She'll let you know when you're needed and mostly when you're not... LOL! Congrats on the purge.

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    1. I know. I can see how it's going to go. :-)

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  5. Oh man. I feel your pain. My son is a hoarder too, he cried for probably half an hour over some name tags that I pulled off of a stack of plastic drawers and threw away. So you can imagine how he handled our recent move. He comes by it completely honest though--my husband's gma is one of those people who has a giant 2 story house and has it so packed full of shit you can't hardly move around. And my step grandma has 3 houses packed full of shit, but at least her stuff might be worth something--it's all collectible type stuff. My husband's grandma just has a house full of crap--old magazines, old clothes, etc. Ugh, and the dust! Yuck!

    Anyway, glad M got her room redone and is on her way to a full-on purge. It sounds like her room is going to be pretty awesome when she gets finished, and I think she'll likely find that she likes it better that way. Or at least I hope so for your sake!

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    1. I really do not understand people who love to keep things. Isn't it stressful? How can it not be? But I sense that it's the unbalanced flip-side of my own need for order.

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  6. Oh man, I'm a hoarder, daughter of a hoarder... but I'm definitely more messy. Bless my parents for not making me be tidy, in the same way that they didn't make me eat meat if I didn't want to! I'm glad you two figured out how to make it work you, too!

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    1. Ha! You come by it honestly. It sounds like your parents have done things very well. That's evident with you and Anne!

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  7. Ah, I remember being bribed to clean my room with a fluorescent orange track suit... the 80's were a strange time.
    I think you are right that maybe you are doing more work as in more actual lifting, but she's doing a whole lot of emotional work letting things go. It's less tangible but a whole lot harder. Hopefully she'll learn out of this experience that it's okay to let things go.

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    1. The 80s were a very strange time :-) And I agree that she was doing a lot of emotional work - I don't discount that at all. I only hope that she's actually processing things rather than capitulating to get stuff she wants. Only time will tell...

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  8. Oh my--my 12-year-old does not understand the meaning of drawers or closets, so when she went to spend a month at her grandmother's summer camp on the east coast, I took the opportunity to purge/clean. We've done it together before, but this only child (me) really truly likes to work alone even though I know I should/could be teaching her. But still.

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