Ok not that disastrous, but it's pretty cold here (for this part of the world at least!). I think it's 12C or something. Inside this building it's probably more like 3C.
This weekend was a letdown. Not that I didn't enjoy what we did instead, but for all intents and purposes (those being to junkblitz) it was a no-show. Mom hasn't dealt with the stuff we blitzed last time. That was at the end of April. 1.5 months ago. So we couldn't actually carry on, because we had made no progress and there was no space to unpack things. I wonder if anything actually was taken away to the charity-organisation, as planned. A whole stack of childrens' books and toys were packed into Mom's car, to be dropped off the next day, but now I'm wondering whether she didn't just unpack them and stack them somewhere (in the outside loo or shed perhaps?) as well.
It's just so... defeating. This whole problem is worse than I'd allowed myself to acknowledge (I did know there was a problem but I was HOPING beyond hope that it wouldn't be like this). My ex-room is now packed full of stuff, not even identifiable stuff. It's just stuff, clutter. There are old picture frames, ah shit I don't even want to try LIST all the stuff in there. It's really hopeless. It's just dreadful.
I wish that there was a simple solution, like buying her a small house, with no pool/big lawn/other troublesome 'add-ons' (because she claims to be 'busy' all the time, sorting out those things, and can't get around to sorting out the junk), but that would actually not help. There's so much junk in the house that she wouldn't be able to move, and even if she were to get rid of everything non-vital, she'd just accumulate more. And if you ask her about individual things, she has an answer (justification) ready. They are 'valid' reasons, or they make SOME vague sense, but they are just so pointless that you are baffled as to why anyone would waste their energy even THINKING about doing something like that, nevermind actually DOING it. Example: collecting 2l ice-cream tub lids, to cut off the rims and keep the lid panel. I ask her what on earth it's for and she points to ONE plant, in the WHOLE massive garden, that has these lids stuck into the soil around it, and says "they prevent the water from running off the soil away from the plant". I just... it's just so depressing.
I wonder now, whether there's been 30 years of this 'accumulation' habit... I guess in the 'bigger' items (like the 30+ year old floor polisher, cot and crib), they've just never got rid of them, but now recently (not sure when it started, when Dad was sick? After he died?), it's other things, like the ice-cream lids. And not throwing away old things like aerosol-cream tins, which expired LAST YEAR. Yes, I have said to her each and every time that they are OLD, and they are MOST LIKELY OFF AND GROSS (not to mention dangerous now?), and she just keeps replying 'no, I can still use the leftovers in something'. Or has it always been like this?
I know this is a publicly viewable blog and anyone reading it can judge her and get a bad impression of her, but there are such complicated issues behind it that I don't even know about. So reserve your judgement for the celebs and gossip-columns. I'm blogging to put my thoughts in order and sort of exorcise them.
My sis ended up leaving very soon after we got there, because Mom started going on about how she does nothing to help (how can a person keep helping in conditions like that? but on the flipside I don't belive sis is very generous with her consideration + assistance), and we came home very soon after that too. We ended up cleaning our own place and enjoying the quiet long weekend. G worked on Monday, I did not. I played Diablo 2 last night. I'm at the end of Act 3, trying to kill Mephisto.
We are still waiting for the ACS result.
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