The Dreaded Box
The Wolvog wanted a desk in his room, but had been dragging his feet on it because he didn’t want the room to look different. I got that. But I recently realized that if we gutted his closet, he could put the desk in his closet. The closet was mostly storage, so the rest of his room would stay as is, and when the door to the closet was closed, it would look exactly the same.
Win-win.
But cleaning out the closet meant dealing with a lot of empty fertility drug bottles and paraphernalia that I had shoved up there 16+ years ago to put off dealing with it. And if we were cleaning out the closet, we were cleaning out the entire closet. The Wolvog dealt with his things, and I was forced to open the box and look at papers and unused sharps and books. The preemie diapers and tiny nail scissors.
So much time has passed, but it still hurts in the exact same way that it hurt when we stopped treatments. It was as if no time had passed. I cried in the same way. It impacted my mood the rest of the day in the same way.
But it feels like I could have waited another 16 years and had the same result. The same feelings.
In the end, the Wolvog had an empty closet, feeling his own feelings about throwing out mementos from his childhood. It was an emotionally hard weekend, but he now has space for a desk.
3 comments
Do you feel lighter or heavier after? That is the measure of whether you were ready to let go. (However, since I know you are resistant to letting go, it may not be the right metric for you. Also, I suspect there are more boxes, whether they are physical or mental, that you have stashed.) Regardless, it’s done and you can move forward, knowing that you have dealt with at least one small part of a painful past. Be proud of yourself.
Oof, those artifacts are gut punches. I feel like boxes like that are like portals, they take you right to a time that hurt, a lot. I recently found a box with cards from our baby shower in it. I can’t bear to throw it away, but I sure did spend some time reading the cards and it put a shadow on the day, too. Sending you love, that’s hard.
I LOVE the idea of a desk in a closet! I love small space solutions and think closets with the doors taken off and painted a different color (or peel-and-stick wallpapered) look amazing. Also like a lot of work. I hope the Wolvog enjoys his new space!
Right after I had my daughter, a woman my mom had been friends with when I went to school with her sons told me she had also experienced infertility “and you never forget how it feels.” Having a baby doesn’t make it go away, not having a baby doesn’t make it go away. I have a sharps container deep in the recesses of a closet and I know I should dig it out and dispose of it but I want to leave it there, buried, so I don’t have to go back to those feelings right now.