Downsizing

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

This time last year, Ben and I were frantically packing in a maelstrom of chaos; I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Living in a place for a long time, one can collect tons of unnecessary things – TONS. I’m a bibliophile and my library that has traveled and expanded with me for 57 years is quite extensive. Rikki used to tell me, “Momma, you’re not going to live long enough to read all these books. Why do you have so many?” Well, there are lots of reasons; some on their faces are too complex to sum up in a Facebook post. At the end of the day, my son was right. Materiality had become unmanageable. I have since been thinning my shelves, and because it’s so hard for me to surrender my books, I’m glad a friend has given me the opportunity to make sure they get into the hands of people who can benefit from them. Since there is no method to my reading madness, there will be something for everyone. The books are going to the new mental health facility in Fallbrook. I feel really good about giving my babies to this effort.

Rikki had been gone two years and seven months when Ben and I were packing like maniacs, unfocused and beyond stressed out. I had mixed emotions about moving. We could not afford the hundreds of dollars of repairs on deferred maintenance; the city life had become unlivable for me; the memories of my last few conflicted years with Rikki were in that house. We had been stuck for a very long time, and it would take a cataclysmic event – like packing up and moving years of stuff from one place to another – to awaken us to greater possibilities for our lives.

On Sunday, it will be one year that we’ve lived in our Yucca Valley home. I celebrate a year of renewal and yes, sometimes, paralyzing fear of change. I shut down after Rikki’s death in lots of ways. For those of you who knew me prior to Rikki’s death, you’d be shocked to see just how much I’d shut down.

Starting from scratch in a new town has forced me to push myself socially. I was safe in my dilapidating 100-year-old house – a sad reflection of the mess I was emotionally. I have accomplished the one major thing I had put off during the immersion into a time of supreme grief: my bachelor’s degree. I made the decision to go into the master’s program – after nearly a year of tortured decision-making. But for me, the thing I’ve done that feels like a greater accomplishment, is get out and make friends. The women’s Bible study at an evangelical-free church, has been good for me. I’ve met some very real, honest, and compassionate women.

We’re still feeling our way around each other. They’d been together for a long time before I entered the scene– and incorporating a new person into established dynamics takes time. They have succeeded in making me feel welcome, however; and I am grateful for them.

I’ve always made friends easily, but I don’t know, after losing Rikki, I’m just, quite frankly, a different person. I was the mother and he was the child, but I feel unsteady on my feet without him here to hold my hand as I walk into a new world – a world without him.

Everything changes when you lose a child. Topics of discussion and word choices become so carefully strategized, and you learn how to pare yourself away from a conversation with the skill of a surgeon. No one is the wiser as you seamlessly separate yourself from tough topics. Who knew you could be so assertive as you deftly change topics? Everything changes.

Ben has decided to pursue a master’s degree in literature through an online university in Glasgow. This past year he spent marinating in front of his computer and working in his Cowboy Zen rock garden has yielded good fruit for him. We’ll be two students this year in our still new and far less cluttered home.

I’ve rearranged my home office once now and in the next few days, it will take on yet another transformation. I nest before each semester of classes begins. Everything must be aesthetically pleasing and functional. Some things don’t change, I guess.

You see, you can rid yourself of books, clothes with tags still on them, and infernal Big Gulp cups you never meant to collect. You can change locations and furniture placement, but memories follow you wherever you go, and while your perception may change about how and why things happened the way they did, the weight of those memories remains the same. Some life events are just powerfully impactful.

We take our lessons and, best case scenario, we use them to improve ourselves and our world.

From my little desert home, complete with seasons, I celebrate my life, the glorious days and the ones fraught with pain. I have come to some conclusions despite the incessant vacillations in which they have been born. It’s in the interstices between stagnation and bursts of growth where change gains momentum.

I’ve never had a green thumb – but we have nine rose bushes here, and suddenly, I have a sense of parental concern for them. I want to ensure their survival. I want to be responsible for the perpetuation of their beauty. I want to grow with them – through unrelenting heat and bittersweet cold…and the springtime in between.

Artist unnamed, Google search, words: minimalist art