Someday.

Scooter finally went back to school this week after having been sick all last week, and Hopper started her day program again, so I am trying to get back into a routine. It's been easier said than done, but then again, it's also only been 2 days. And I'm trying to do the caffeine withdrawal thing again, without much success. I can't seem to do an extended hospital stay for the girls without getting hooked on soda again. I think it's because I'm afraid to sleep at the hospital, because I'm afraid the nurses will miss something I might catch. 


I know. 


I'm a control freak.


A control freak who's addicted to caffeinated pop once again.


It could be worse. I could be drinking a 6 pack or a 2 liter bottle a day, but I'm drinking less than half that. The rough thing is that I'm not sure, if I am going to try to get it out of my system before I get through my mountains of paperwork or not. It is what it is. I either will, or I won't, and I'm not going to stress over it.


The paperwork, on the other hand, is a totally different monster. I will be stressing over it until I get it finished, and I've got to get it done as quickly as possible.


Well, that's not entirely true. 


I just need to find the girls' birth certificates and social security cards. So if I find them, I can take a breather from the rest of the paperwork, if I need to.


So I worked through some really rough boxes tonight. I only got through two of them, and although I feel accomplished, it wasn't easy. Although the first box was easier than the second.


The first box had an assortment of paperwork. There was everything from old water bills to telephone bills that spanned several years, and bank receipts. It also held old hospital and doctor receipts as well as school papers, art projects and notes from each of the girls.


It was fairly easy to sort. If the art projects didn't have a name on them, and I couldn't tell who had done them, I tossed them. I saved some of the hospital and doctor bills/notes, if they had vital information on them, so I can scan them. For the most part, things were either thrown in the trash into the shredables, and almost all of the few things I saved will be scanned and then tossed.


I have to admit I felt pangs of guilt when I saw some of Hopper's papers in there. The school papers that I decided not to save weren't really the issue. It was the pages upon pages of her notebook papers that I threw that gave me pause. While I was going through them, to make sure there wasn't anything I was going to keep, I pictured her as a little girl piling all her special papers that she was so very proud of on top of Mom and Dad's piano stool.


For a moment or two I physically felt the same panic I used to feel when I would pick her papers up and put them in a box to hide them from her. I always felt guilty picking the papers up and taking them away from her when she wasn't looking, but if I hadn't we'd have had papers piled to the ceiling years ago. There was just so very little she ever asked for that I felt bad taking one of the few things away from her that she enjoyed so much. I didn't feel like a very good mom, for sure. And all of those feelings came rushing back tonight as I was going through the boxes. 


The feelings of unease carried over into the sorting of the second box. I absolutely abhor boxes like this one. It was a mix of paperwork, little toys the girls loved, necklaces, bracelets and mouse turds. There were a couple of tins in the box that I didn't save to use, but I did put with the scrap metal to recycle. And 90% of the stuff in the box went in the trash or in the shredables, but that doesn't mean it was easy to sort the stuff out.

The toys were plastic. I could sterilize the toys. I actually set them aside to do exactly that for awhile. There was a little change in the box as well, so I did clean it with an antibacterial wipe and put it in the piggy bank. I figured it was cleaner than the vast majority of coins in the piggy bank once I got done using the wipe on it, so that was easy enough. It's not like anyone will be handling it with any regularity anyway.

I found a copy of a letter Hubster's great grandfather had written in the 1890s that had been translated from Swedish to English after he'd moved to the States from Sweden so many years ago. There was also a snapshot of me and Hubster out at dinner when we were dating and a grouping of pictures that came out of a booth where you put quarters in at a mall to capture the moment. Bugster is holding a 3 month old Scooter on her lap, and the baby is wailing. Hopper is over to Bugster's side, and is laughing hysterically at the noises coming out of Scooter's mouth. It's a precious picture, to be sure, and I'm very glad I found it.


I also came across a 110 camera with a built-in flash in the box. I'll stick new batteries in and try to take the last couple of pictures on the film and then get it developed. I have no clue what we'll find when we get the pictures back. It ought to be interesting.


Most all of that was easy, but I really struggled when I came across the necklaces and bracelets. There was a really cute necklace with wooden hearts and wooden spools on it that I had just loved on the girls. It had a white heart, red spools, and a blue cord, and it was just adorable. I came really close to trying to figure out how to get it clean, so I could let Scooter wear it. She's really into jewelry, and she'd have loved it.


I mean, I could have soaked it in bleach water to make sure it was clean. The bracelets, too. One of the necklaces had definitely been made by Hopper or Scooter. It had all sorts of wacky, fun, colorful beads on it, including a pacifier bead, and I could have gotten in clean enough for the girls to wear again. And then I remembered all the beads we have downstairs just waiting for the girls to make new necklaces and bracelets, and how I really didn't need to save any of them. 


I probably would never feel comfortable enough to let the girls wear the bracelets and necklaces, even if I thought I'd gotten them clean enough. I'd likely just store them somewhere allowing them to make me feel guilty for not doing anything with them and not giving them to the girls and they'd sit there waiting for me to get to them. Someday. So I took a big breath, and I threw them in the trash.


Then I looked at the handful of toys I'd set aside to wash. I'm not sure what I'd have done with them. I probably would have bleached them til no color was left in the plastic all the while telling myself I was saving them for Bugster's babies. That she might just want to keep them for her little ones to play with. But she's going to want to buy toys for her little ones herself. She's not going to want toys that had mouse turds on them and she's not sure are clean enough for her babies. I don't want that for my grandchildren, either.


And then I realized the hoarder part of me was trying to take over. It was trying to make my decisions for me. To keep me feeling insecure. To keep me hanging on. To control me. 


So instead of waiting to deal with the toys Someday, I decided to deal with them now. Today. I threw them all in the trash, and although I have a slight residual feeling of panic, they're gone, and they're not coming back. 


I'll count it as a victory. 


A small victory, but a victory, nonetheless.


And it didn't happen Someday. It happened Today.