Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Yesterday we went to the shop, and heard the responses from my parents. My boyfriend had cleaned up some cables and equipment for my dad, and he didn't really seem upset or grateful, just indifferent. My mother hadn't seen the shop yet when we got there, so I went up to the house to start lunch with her. My father warned me not to let her push bad tomatoes on me from her garden. She is pretty delusional when it comes to food and cooking, getting recipes wrong, and holding on to bad food too long. I looked in her fridge for BLT ingredients, and sure enough, brown lettuce, moldy bread, three month expired mayo, and unwrapped bacon, along with a large assortment of improperly stored foods. A rock-hard piece of pizza was naked and balancing on the edge of egg cartons stacked two-high.

She was clearly offended when I said I was going to the store for ingredients, because she was very proud of her "garden" tomatoes, even though they had clear rot spots, and one even had a store bar code sticker on it. I couldn't believe it, I left to go to the store for ingredients, and hoped I'd find some fresh air. The house reeked. the dining room and kitchen were much less full of tupperware and things than last time, but I found out that was because she had thrown it all on the couches in the living room. More was sitting in the sink with stale, greasy, rank smelling water. They were out of town the day before, and who knows how long it had been in that condition. All of the open public places in the house (i.e. kitchen, dining room, living room etc) smelled like this funky greasy water.

Eventually, we all went down to the shop, and my mother saw her clean desks for the first time. I don't remember exactly what she said, but she stammered a bit, but she didn't cry, or scream. So far so good. The next several hours I walked her through sorting through her aunt's belongings in the back room, but I had to reiterate every few minutes, that if nothing goes out, you have no where to put the things you keep. After a while she got overwhelmed so I had her sit at her clean desks, and brought her one box at a time. She still had two keep boxes and two maybe (i.e. what does this lid go to) boxes of tupperware alone. Tupperware is a huge weakness for her (as evident by even just the amount visible in the pictures, plus several closets and piles not included), she has hundreds of mismatched pieces, and claims she uses them all because she makes meals for her father who is out of state. We got all the pieces of clothing on some table tops, off the floor, and began sorting her holiday decorations into their own boxes. You can see some floor now, and there's a corner established for the martial arts gear.

It was quickly becoming clear that there is too much stuff...just, too much. But I was working, doing something actively, and this time with her! Since I've been considering pursuing professional organizer certification, it was good experience to be thrown into the situation, and a challenge to keep her from making a bigger mess in order to sort things. I worked hard with her to make sure that for everything that came out of a box, that thing then went into another, the trash, or in it's home. She only asked about one thing the whole day, that I knew I had thrown out, and that was only because she found one tiny piece of it. I was able to skirt the topic for now, even as she said herself "I can't throw this out, what if my aunt asks for it, I'd feel horrible." When my boyfriend and I cleaned up alone, we took out over a dozen garbage bags in five hours. With my mother and I working, I maybe got five out. She was suspicious, even though we explained that we didn't throw "things" away, just garbage (I don't consider two pairs of my sunglasses that she had borrowed in succession and then sat on and broke, "things", but rather trash). She noted that she had just had the business's dumpster dumped the week before, and knew it wasn't nearly full when they left. But she didn't go through it, so we were still on the right track.

So, a long day, a lot of hard work, but before we left for the day, I told her we needed to put everything we had been sorting in the office area, away. Trash goes out, donation boxes are stacked in a corner or go in a vehicle right now, maybes go back in the back room, and keeps go to their homes asap. She said she was tired, and would do it later. I insisted, saying this is not an option if she wants my continued help. I then encouraged her to make decisions to find homes for everything she had put on her front desk just since being there that day. She laughed, and asked if I was going to come in and clean off her desks every other day. I wanted to tell her that if she has time to even think about all the projects she thinks she's going to do with all the junk in her buildings, she has the time to clear her desk off before she leaves every day. My boyfriend confided that he wanted to remind her that she was a grown woman. My mother really only flipped once during the process that day, she argued with my dad over my boyfriend and what he should work on at that moment. My mother purchased a receipt scanner, convinced it would simplify her desk (even though we tried to explain to her that she would need originals for tax purposes anyway). Who knows how long ago she bought it, but I found it in the mess that was her back desk, and she suddenly had to have it installed and in use. I understand the urge to use what she has, it validates the things she keeps, but it was impractical. On top of that, my boyfriend had projects he was working on for the business already. They argued, and she yelled, he just ignored her after a while. I tried to mediate by explaining to my mother that not only was my boyfriend already busy with what he was hired to do, but that when considering the proportions of an already sorted pile of receipts, versus two buildings of stuff, she needed to choose her battles.

The day ended on a positives though, with having the desks still cleared off, the backroom in a better state, and a sense of direction so that if she were to work alone before I can get there again, she could. Then today, we were at a festival downtown, and she told me never to clean out her refrigerator again. I was flabbergasted. I didn't clean out her refrigerator, my boyfriend and I did the dishes after I made everyone lunch, and I threw out the three things that were rank (lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo) but only after I replaced them with what I bought that day. She said she is capable of cleaning out her own refrigerator, and this infuriated me. If you can clean out your own refrigerator, because you're a big girl, DO IT, damnit! She even said "Your sister always tries to do that when she's in town, too." Again, I'm thinking it should mean something if your grown daughters are taking it upon themselves to clean your refrigerator. She started laughing, in that uncomfortable laugh that is ill-fitting for the tense silence between an accusation or threat, and the rebuttal. I was not in the mood to listen to this, after having devoted 12 hours of my week to helping her.

They're actually going to be in town Monday and Tuesday, the days I took off in order to work more in their building, but after what my mom said today, I am going to take Monday for myself. I'll run some errands, clean my own home, apply for jobs, maybe even use the massage certificate from my boyfriend from graduation. Tuesday, I'm not sure, maybe I'll go in, maybe I'll change my mind. What is painfully clear, is that she needs professional help to aid her mental stability, and to clean up, but there is also, a huge element, of laziness. There was so much trash, she found it hard to believe that all we threw out was garbage, but for us, after cleaning for twenty minutes, we realized that was all we could do, because we couldn't even get to the "things." She's so severely attached to things that aren't even hers...the house is a can of worms I couldn't begin to wrap my mind around.

So, until I decide about Tuesday, I'm going to take a break from worrying about her. Her lack of gratitude has helped thrust me into a less-willing-to-help perspective, like those who have tried before me, and given up. I'm sharing all of these intimate details with you, so that you might share in my education during this process, but this, as I'm finding, might be something that most have to experience for themselves. If you have questions, advice, or want to talk about situations like this, as always, leave a comment or email me.