Clean Break and Breaking News
written 7/14/24 - hurry and read/subscribe for the post drop on Friday
Since 2022 moving is 1) too busy for my personal maintenance; 2) it is too fast and disorganized; and 3) it is “too many tin can tears.”
One - In 2022 moving was physically too busy for my personal maintenance. I wasn’t eating, sleeping or showering due to stress and displacement. It was also too much for my mental maintenance. I was not writing, reading or taking breaks for mental rest.
Two - Because of the rush, it was so disorganized. I don’t know where all my stuff is. I don’t know what all I have. I left things in my Oklahoma storage unit that I wanted to get rid of. I could not sell or organize or inventory like I wanted.
In case I didn’t write about it clearly, I moved from a small apartment in Guatemala to a large house in Guatemala in the summer of 2023. I packed all of my items and left them disorganized when I came to Oklahoma for the summer. A friend in GT helped organize them better. Somehow pieces of my daughter's trampoline got lost. For the second time while unpacking I didn’t know where everything was. I didn’t know what all I had. Only thanks to my friend, I didn’t leave anything in the last place.
It’s summer 2024. I packed up a large house so I could move back to the US. I left so many things in my neighbor’s house that I wanted to get rid of. Despite the resources available to me, I could not sell or organize or inventory like I wanted. I wanted to pack lighter returning to the US that I had on the way to Guatemala. Packing lighter was successful, but only because I left my neighbor’s spare room packed with unsold stuff. I have friends there helping me to get rid of items over the next two or three months. I am trusting the process, although it now has a little bit of built-up trauma.
I have five suitcases with me here and my grandmother‘s house. In my storage unit there are boxes and bins and a 3-piece bedroom suit and a bedframe and a washer and dryer and a vanity table and a TV and two pink office chairs. There is no couch. There are no beds. There’s an unsold baby crib that transforms to a toddler bed. There’s a space heater and a tall table and chairs that I inherited from a family member. Here in my grandmother‘s garage there’s a pack-and-play. On her back patio there’s a portable fire pit and citronella candles.
Three - in the last post (linked here)
I wrote: On the way out of my hometown two years ago, “I drug too many tin can tears/ down the tracks.” So I’m currently in the process of the “circle back,” trying to “sweep up some debris” of my feelings and history. I’m gonna give you a movie reference and some vague metaphors until I feel like telling more of these stories.
“A clean break is easier. You can reset it and it heals. But if you leave things messy, then it just hurts forever” (Little Black Book).
If you’re in a handcuff or rope, tied or shackled, the thing keeping you bound is the rope/metal. But it’s also your bones. The easiest way to get out is for someone to untie or unlock. But when you’re a prisoner and release is unlikely, you always have the option to break your own hand. Your reaction, reader, to that scenario indicates how trapped you feel and how far you would go to get free. In 2022, I felt so trapped that I was elated to sacrifice long-term pain for freedom. Catch that: not only not-scared, but elated. Now I’ve lived two years with a strangely-healed hand bone. I’m ready for a surgeon to re-break it, pin and screw it, and boss me through physical therapy so that it can heal cleanly. I’ve got to backtrack slow enough to maintain my own mind and body and my child’s mind and body before I can move forward cleanly.
The debris I have to sweep up is in Oklahoma. It looks like I might be here for a minute.
(I'll post about the job when it's official. I'm living with my grandma for a couple of months. I'm looking for a first grade. We are chugging along.)