Every so often, we gut our storage room, letting go of more of our past.  Back in college, a girl in my department lost everything she owned in an apartment fire.  I think about her whenever there is a need to go into the basement storage room because when she returned to class, telling us about the fire — which was a famous fire that engulfed the bar below the apartment so it had been in the newspaper daily while she was away, almost as if the articles were a placeholder for the lives displaced by the flames — she put everything into perspective for us.

Everyone in the department was a writer, therefore, we were absolutely sickened over the idea that her words had gone up in smoke.  But she said that there were plenty of copies of her stories in her departmental file or at friend’s apartments.  Most of her clothes were there to keep her warm; they didn’t really have sentimental value.  Her books, knickknacks she picked up from her travels, pictures — she realized from this fire that she could live without all of it, and the only thing she missed at all was something she received from the Dalai Lama which was irreplaceable.  And she mourned that item from the Dalai Lama, but could let the rest of it go.

I didn’t think I could ever have her overall attitude towards possessions — and I don’t — but every few years, I get to a place where I am absolutely at peace with the idea of getting rid of things.  And then it becomes a huge weight on me until it happens: from the time I get the idea that we need to clean until the time that everything is donated or given away or at the dump.

I came to pick up that weight recently when I had cause to go down into the storage room to find an old toy.  First of all, the storage room is unusable once again.  There are too many boxes and there’s nowhere to shift them around.  I managed to move a few into the laundry room and sift through some boxes, but I realized two things.  (1) I had saved much more than I needed to save.  There were a lot of things in those boxes that I would never use again such as random stuffed animals or puzzles that annoyed the crap out of me the first time around.  (2) Having my hands in those boxes was so emotionally painful that I felt like I was underwater the entire time I was down there.  I couldn’t breathe normally.

I hadn’t opened most of those boxes in many years.  I had carefully packed away all of the twins’ favourite toys from babyhood.  There was the plastic puppy who barked when you pulled him around on a string and sorting toys and two Noah’s Ark sets because people love to give those to twins.  I had packed them up so carefully both to save space and fit more in the box, but also because I thought we’d need them again soon.  I found myself throwing everything around in the boxes, and since I hadn’t removed the batteries from one toy, I heard a dog barking over and over again every time the depressed button shifted.  I literally was sifting around the toys as I stir cooking pasta, and the puzzle pieces were leaving their wooden cases and the trucks were getting scattered as I tossed them around.  I didn’t care.  I just jammed the tops back down on the boxes and went back upstairs even though I could still hear the dog toy barking every few seconds in his box.

Psychoanalysts believe the mind is like a house, with the basement being the subconscious; memories and thoughts we can access by walking down the stairs, which lay beneath our daily living space, but isn’t part of our hourly world.  And in many ways, I have treated our physical basement as a receptacle for everything from our past as well as things I’d like to tuck away and just not deal with for a moment.  If you ask me where the old toys are, I can tell you exactly where in the house they are stored.  But I don’t think about them on a daily basis.  I don’t go down there most of the time.

A therapist would have a field day discussing my toy search.

As you read this, we are gutting the basement.  I am selling a few things.  I have boxes that are going out to various people, and others that I am repacking neatly and writing the contents on the outside, intended either for my own future child or a sibling’s future child.  I won’t have to open them again if I don’t want to.  I’ll be able to send someone else downstairs to fetch something if we ever need to pull anything out.

I would like someone else to play with these things again.

I am trying to conjure up that attitude that the girl in my department had and stop feeling so sentimental about every small item.  They are just things.  I can let most of them go.  We don’t need to keep every book, every stuffed animal, every game.  If another child comes along, we don’t need to put out 100 toys.  We can put out 25, and they will still be happy.

I know in the past that I’ve treated cleaning like this as doing double duty of gutting my mental basement; of discarding the emotions that are boxed up down there.  I know that when we lived in our old apartment and I dumped all my research down the garbage chute, I thought I was also doing the hard work of closing up that unfinished degree.  I know that when we gutted the basement the last time in 2010, using the money for our first trip to Disney, I thought that I had made peace with those leftover baby items.

It doesn’t really work that way.  One thing doesn’t really solve the other.

I told the twins how we were going to spend the weekend.  That we’d be cleaning from the bottom up instead of our usual top down.  That we’d be boxing up things and giving things away and taking things to the dump, and I expected them to be helpful and generous and not make this any harder than it needs to be.  The ChickieNob immediately went into frantic mode thinking about her toys going to other people — she’s the sort who likes to save every tiny goody bag toy — but I promised that the things that mattered most, the things she’d mourn if she ever lost them, would remain in our basement.  She’d see them again when we had a new baby to play with them.

And she looked so hopeful, following after me to ask if I was going back to the doctor.  That she would be such a good big sister and help me.  She would play with the baby so I could get things done.  I would see this weekend how helpful she could be.  And there’s no way to explain to her that there is no level in which a person can be good enough, helpful enough, loving enough to ensure that they get the sibling they desire.  I told her that she should just be herself; that I knew already what a helpful person she was, and then I skittered on to talking about deflating her ball pit, making a work area in the living room, creating more spaces in the house that were for the twins to do with as they will.

You wonder, as someone who has her own filled basement, what sort of boxes your children are storing in theirs.  I can’t keep their mental basements neat any more than my mother can clean mine; but I do wonder what from this longing is going into boxes in her mental storage room.  What she’ll decide to toss when she goes through cleaning.  What will go up in the flames of forgetfulness as she ages, that she doesn’t miss at all.  That she has learned to let go of because it’s they’re just things, just thoughts.

This just may be the first post I’ve ever written knowing exactly how the comments will go before I have even written the first word.  There will be some who say, “oh shit, now I get it.  I saw that and didn’t know what the hell my friend was talking about.”  And there will be some who will say, “that is so fucking stupid that I can’t believe grown women believe this is raising breast cancer awareness.”  And there will be about four people — most of whom comment anonymously — who say that it’s just a fun game and it raises awareness and if I don’t like it click away and if I’m writing a post about this, I must be a loser.

I am a loser.

Today I encountered the latest breast cancer awareness meme on Facebook.  You write, “I am going to X for Y months!” and fill in the X and Y with a country that reflects your birth month and the day of your birth.  For instance, if your birthday was today, it would read, “I am going to Mexico for thirteen months!”

And somehow, from that, we are supposed to learn something about breast cancer.  Even though breast cancer itself isn’t mentioned.  Even though this meme assumes that the reader somehow forgets that breast cancer exists until they are reminded once again with a meme.  As if I’m eating my Cheerios and reading Facebook and suddenly shout out, “oh crap!  I totally forgot all about breast cancer!  Now I remember that breast cancer exists… wheeeew.”  And somehow, that saves a life.

I am all for education — I will forever be grateful for Toddler Planet’s viral post about inflammatory breast cancer.  That bit of social media potentially saved lives.  It made me aware of something I didn’t know existed.  It gave me concrete steps to take if I saw any of the symptoms listed in the post.

What I do have a problem with is slacktavism because it’s lazy.  Because I think it does more harm than good when it makes people roll their eyes rather than listen.  I wrote about this a while back with the fake pregnancy meme that went around and how it had the potential to hurt.  And while moving somewhere may not evoke the same emotional reaction as a pregnancy announcement, I find the whole thing to be equally as annoying — and yes, I will write this type of post every time I see it because it bothers me in the same way that I feel an internal rage building when someone describes themselves as “really nice” when we all know that they’re a total bitch.

Because unless you are the type of person who calls your friends and coyly tries to confuse them, I don’t see why you’d engage in that same behaviour on Facebook.  And if you are the type of person who calls your friends and says, “I’m moving to Mexico.  Just kidding!  Think about breast cancer!” well..  I truly don’t understand why people think that the very same social rules that we use to comport ourselves in the face-to-face world aren’t applicable to the online world.

I know I’m going to be told to lighten up.  That it’s just a game.  It’s just Facebook.  It’s just for fun.  But breast cancer isn’t for fun.  Breast cancer isn’t a joke.  It isn’t something to be taken lightly.  And frankly, I think it sucks that I have to live in a world where people hear that someone is offended and their response is lighten up, just as much as people who tell me to lighten up probably think it sucks to live in a world with someone as un-fun as me.

We downloaded Google Earth for the iPad, which is a free app.  It has brought us hours of amusement.  First and foremost, I love that when you put in a new location, the screen sucks backwards as if you have suddenly lifted into the air, and then you fly across the screen until you land in the new place.  We virtually visit Disney World, using our fingers to drag ourselves between the park and the Contemporary Hotel.  We walk through neighbourhoods in London, seeing how all the streets intersect.  I sometimes go back to old places I’ve lived and follow the roads between different landmarks.  It’s as good as Adele, in that regard, if you’re looking for a good cry.

But our absolute favourite thing to do is to put in fictional places and see where Google Earth places us.  We’ve looked up Privet Drive and Hogwarts (Hogwarts is obviously unplottable, but we still tried it anyway).  We’ve looked up Neverland (it brings up nothing).  Terabithia (again, nothing).  Radiator Springs (if you add in Route 66, it takes you somewhere in Arizona where the road layout is close enough to Radiator Springs that if your children don’t poke around too much, they will totally find it believable).

I think it is a major failing of Google Earth not to pepper in a few additional, fictional locations.  Or, at the very least, create a second app called Google Earth Fantasy, where you could go to the Shire or Whangdoodleland or Cockaigne.  Wouldn’t you love to see a map of London and then see Diagon Alley coming out from behind of The Leaky Cauldron?

What fictional place would you want included in Google Earth Fantasy?

 *******

Today is obviously Friday the 13th.  I couldn’t remember ever remarking that it was Friday the 13th in a Friday Blog Roundup even though it happens all the time.  By which I mean that the Roundup is always on a Friday and Friday the 13th is always a Friday, therefore, the two must intersect.  I searched my own blog and found mentions of it in pretty much two year jumps.  The last time was 2010, so it feels like we’re ripe for another remark about the date.

I wrote this last time and it still stands, except instead of noticing it on Twitter, I noticed it when I was writing down plans for the weekend and I said, “oh my G-d, it’s Friday the 13th this weekend!”

Today is Friday the 13th.  That only occurred to me because someone Tweeted about it earlier in the week.  I also missed the fact that it was 8/9/10 on Monday.  I am not the brightest woman when it comes to dates, though I have 2012 circled on my calendar not just because the world is ending that year, but because it’s also Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee.

Though I’m usually fairly anxious around certain dates, allowing my imagination to run towards grotesquely disturbing scenarios, I’ve never had big feelings concerning Friday the 13th.  Even if I live … like … 2 miles from Camp Crystal Lake and I totally know someone who knows someone who is the cousin of the counselor who decapitated Mrs. Voorhees.

It’s one of those dates that I feel like I should have big feelings about.  If I’m not worried, then I must be a fool.

You know how girls pinched each other’s arms with a Cootie Shot to ward off boy germs?  Mentioning that it’s Friday the 13th feels like a horror Cootie Shot.

Do you care about Friday the 13th or are you not superstitious about the date?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “A Letter to My Fertile Friends” (MMCC – IF Only)
• “Failed” (Are You Kidding Me?)
• “What I Was” (TheStorkDiaries)
• “Has Anger Solved Your Other Problems?” (DoctorMama)
• “Plan B” (Even Miracles Take a Little Time)
• “Mawage, that Bwessed Awangmen” (Eggs in a Row)
• “Devastation…” (For We Are Bound By Symmetry)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Baby Smiling in Back Seat has an interesting post about theft, and it made me consider tangible items (of which I had none) and non-tangible items (of which the perspective sort of changes whether you ask me or you ask the person “stolen” from — I don’t know if you can really steal friends, but someone else, for instance, might say I stole a friend).  It’s not only an interesting topic on a very organ squirmy subject, but it also makes you think about the various ways you may have inadvertently or purposefully trespassed on another person’s life.  Food for thought.

Miss Conception has a post about the hidden side of grief, the additional things that are missed after the initial loss.  The day before what should have been her baby shower, she sits with her grief over her twins.  It is not just the twins who aren’t here, but it is all the happy moments that can’t be partaken in due to their death.  She writes, “Now…there will be no celebration. Tomorrow there won’t be any acknowledgement that they were supposed to be here at all. No one will even know that it was supposed to be my shower because the invitations never got the chance to be mailed. It will be just another day, like every other.”  But it’s not just another day to her.  Please shower her with love as she mourns her loss.

My Scar Smiles at Me also has a post about mourning, which becomes an exploration of why we mourn, why we don’t just sweep life under the rug.  This thought took my breath away with its brilliance: “Yes, I don’t want to grieve every moment of my life. But I finally just said to my husband, ‘I don’t want to spend all day on the toilet, but no one wants to never ever take a shit’  its part of life and I while I don’t mind keeping it to myself now and then, the reality is we don’t talk much about our bowel movements at work, but there is unspoken space (both in time and equipment) provided for that necessary part of life.”  You have to read this whole post.

Lastly, With Just a Little Help has a post about being ok-ish after their last IVF cycle.  She relays a frustrating conversation with the physician’s assistant who messes up telling her important information about her embryos, as well as a difficult conversation with their parents.  But it is a final phone call — a call from a friend — that reminds her that she is still ok-ish.  A great post about the aftermath.

The roundup to the Roundup: Which fictional places would you like to see on Google Earth Fantasy?  Do you care that it is Friday the 13th?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 6th and January 13th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

It may or may not be International Blog Delurking Week. The first full week of January is when we’re supposed to slither out of the reading closet and check in with an “I’m here” comment.  Which would have been last week since the 1st fell on a Sunday.  But since we usually allow everyone’s hangover to pass before we ask them to delurk, I waited until the second week in January to request everyone reading to raise their figurative hand.

Which seems to be what most people have done.

So welcome to International Blog Delurking Week.  I make a badge every year to mark the occasion, and I give you full permission to right click and grab it for your very own.

My reward for remembering to do this (when I could have just as easily forgotten) is that you have to delurk for this worldwide holiday (which is just as serious and important as all other worldwide holidays … such as International Harry Potter Reading Day.  And International Font Loving Week.

It is fairly easy. Leave a comment in the comment section below admitting that you’re here. You can simply raise your hand and meekly admit that you’re here with a simple, one-word “here” comment; or you can proudly raise your hand and tell us all a bit about yourself (my preferred method); or you can tell me what type of cookie you’d be if you were a lump of cookie dough (see, I’m trying to make it easy for you by even providing a comment prompt). The point is that I want to know about the people who read me, since there is a huge discrepancy between the number of readers in actuality and the number of readers I actually know are reading. Or a tongue-twister like that.

And that’s all you have to do to celebrate.

So (clears throat to nudge you along), who is here?

Sometimes I play Russian Roulette with my blog, believing (probably improperly) that my real feelings will bubble to the surface when faced with needing to make a choice.  I write a post that I feel on the fence about; not on the fence about in terms of writing it because I always think it’s worthy to take the words out of my head, but on the fence about posting it.  Perhaps because I’m worried that I’m not saying it well and I’ll offend someone, or it truly is offensive and therefore I will surely offend someone, or it’s just a waste of time for someone else to read, or it makes me squirm on the inside to send these thoughts into the universe.  There’s a whole host of reasons why I don’t hit publish.

But sometimes I schedule a post to run at a certain time; usually hours away.  And I give myself that time to think about how I’ll feel when the post goes up.  If I’m still anxious about it, I’ve been known to dive at my computer with two minutes to spare and hit unpublish.  Or sometimes the hour passes and the first comment comes in, and I remember about the post and realize I was probably at peace with it if my mind rested.  And then there are times when a lot of other stuff mentally gets in the way so I inadvertently stop thinking about how I feel about the post.  Then the post goes up, and I gulp and have a “should I have published that” moment.

That last post was one of those posts.

I wasn’t worried about being seen as a bitch because frankly, I have my moments and I can be bitchy.  And I own that.  I wasn’t worried about the twins reading it in the future and what they’d think in terms of their placement on my emotional spectrum — I think our life is nuanced enough for them to know they’re not a replacement or a stand-in or any of those sorts of things.  They are just the ChickieNob and Wolvog; their own beings and I am so glad that they are here, that I get to be the person to mother them.  I wasn’t worried that I was being cruel to those pregnancies that didn’t continue — I think I conveyed clearly that I still grieve the fact that those babies aren’t here.  I wasn’t worried about being too open about my wonky uterus because that ship sailed about 5 1/2 years ago when I started this blog.

I don’t know what the hell I was worried about, but I had one of those moments where the first comment came in and my heart started pounding, beating out a mantra of “crap crap crap you forgot forgot forgot.”  By which I mean that without knowing why I felt that way, I totally understood when Esperanza said that it terrified her to post her comment.

Do you ever schedule posts to run in the future (hours or days) just to give yourself more time to think about posting?

I am also, I guess, surprised that it resonated with people.  By which I mean that I am an incredibly poor judge of knowing what will resonate with people.  Perhaps we are all poor judges when it comes down to it.  I know I am not the only one who has been beyond surprised that a certain post has elicited an effusive response while another that I thought everyone would nod their heads in agreement with has gotten a sort of bobblehead-in-the-breeze reaction.  By which I mean a few head nods, but certainly not due to the impact of my words.

Blogging really is just a game of vomiting it all out there, and then sifting through each other’s verbal puke to see patterns like reading wet tea leaves to find answers to our own thoughts.  Nu?