Making space

I finally emptied out Mark's nightstand drawers.  It wasn't that it was hard to do, its just that it wasn't at the top of my list of things to work on.  But last weekend I wanted that feeling that I am actually in control of my life.  I wanted to be able to clear a space or a closet or a drawer or SOMETHING. Every week the progress is finally starting to become clearer.   While I'm working on it, if I let my thoughts go down a certain path, I feel anger towards him... for allowing our home to become so full of useless (to me) shit.  For refusing to help me purge it and organize it, instead making me in charge of making everything fit so we would still have room to raise four children here. For not taking care of himself and literally letting himself die instead of visiting the doctor like I asked him to.  For making this problem mine now, fully mine, in a future that is completely different from the one we planned to spend together.

I find a personal item and it brings it all back full circle.  He is gone, and he does not care about any of this stuff.  He did, in the past.  He does not now.  All of the things here belong to me now.  Yes, it is a burden and a chore, but it feels so good to let these things go.  Guilt-free.  The camping crap?  Going.  The electronics?  Going.  All of the clothes, coats, shoes, gimme caps. Gone.

So, so much stuff in the garage that defies description.

This pair of eyeglasses I remember well - I thought they looked great on him.  They are now going to bless someone else who needs glasses, next month when I go for my own eye exam.  Keeping all of the the things and having to organize them, move them, and see them forever makes no sense to me.  It keeps me rooted in the past, and that's not where I'm headed.

Addition by subtraction.  Making space for the future me.