Still Too Difficult

I’m still not really doing too well with the sorting. Every drawer or box seems to contain something which makes me feel sad, or even cry. I despair of ever getting through it all.

Today I wanted to tackle Mum’s chest of drawers properly so that I can fill it with my scarves, gloves, underwear, socks etc. There’s a lockable drawer at the top where Mum used to store her jewellery (this was largely given away to family members by Mum herself before her death). However, the drawer still contains personal things like her purse and Dad’s wallet. In her small handbag I found a scrap of paper on which Mum had written in her wobbly Parkinson’s handwriting “do not resuscitate”, then she had signed it. Dad’s wallet holds this beautiful photo of Mum in the 1960’s, and some very fragile folded Toytown Postal Orders which are made out to him in my childish hand for 10 shillings each. He had kept these precious items in there for 50-odd years. I just can’t get rid of things like that.

This awful heatwave isn’t helping. It makes me sweaty after a while, and then all I want to do is sit down and cool off. Then it’s hard to get up and back at the sorting again. But the main issue is that I know I’m going to get upset, which is often too huge a psychological block to overcome. I’m at a loss how to get past this and finish making the house properly my own home. The irony is that I will spend hours and even days doing all sorts to help others, but seem unable to do the same for myself. A procrastination technique which has the added benefit of being kind. I have managed to do a bit over the past two days, but at this rate I’ll be about 90 by the time it’s all done.