I’ve said it before, August 2016 was the lowest of my lower points. I work very carefully day-to-day to never end up back in that place. 17 months after my suicide attempt, I had lost my second job in a year, and was evicted from my apartment. I had less than a week to pack up everything and get out of the apartment. So, I did. I got a 10 x 10 storage, and cleaned out every inch of my apartment. Packing my entire life, and my kids lives, into boxes, crates, and plastic bins. I discarded broken my broken sofa into the dumpster, gifted my televisions to friends or family that could use an extra one, trashed all of remnants from my fridge, abandoned kitchen supplies, and loaded it into my car and a U-Haul. I bought a large rolling duffel bag, and stuffed my suit and a couple blouses in it, along with a week’s worth of work out clothes, three t-shirts and a pair of jeans. I stuffed my toiletries in the pocket of the bag, grabbed my keys, locked the door to the apartment, and said goodbye. I said goodbye to everything I had once hoped for. I said goodbye to that feeling that I could do anything, if I just made up my mind to try. As I packed my things into this 10 x 10 storage unit, and pulled down the garage door, and placed the lock on it, everything felt like it was coming to an end.
I can remember my sister making a comment one day as I cried about all of this, “Maybe this is a sign that you needed to start over.” I wasn’t quite ready to see the beginning at the time, but I knew it was the end of something. As of today, I have paid $115 a month for a total of 45 months. That’s $5,175. $5,175 to store memories. I didn’t have expensive furniture because I really couldn’t afford it. I was storing memories. I created a vault of my pre- and somewhat post-suicide attempt life. What is absolutely insane is, as I cleared it out yesterday, I cried. Real, like-a-baby missing its mom, cried. I called my friend, and in the nicest way possible, he worked really hard to not laugh at me. He tried to understand whether they were happy tears or if I was somehow purposely making this a sad thing. What I tried to explain is that, while I was happy about the closing of this chapter, I was also overwhelmed by all of the “things” contained in that storage unit. “Things” I see differently now.
Over the course of the last 45 months, things have been taken out of that storage, and added in. I have given away some of my furniture that sat there not in use for a couple of years, but still in great condition. I cleaned out a few things from my father’s town-home that I had accumulated while I started my event decor business and brought them to the storage unit. As I moved things out yesterday and started to sweep up, tears started falling. I now see three stages of my life in that storage unit. Pre-attempt, Post-Attempt, and the Trial. Cleaning it out is the start of yet another stage. At this point, I don’t know exactly what to call it, but I know its time to sort through the lessons of all those other stages and begin again, begin anew.
So yes, cleaning out my storage made me cry. It reminded me of old feelings, good and bad, some of the crates reminded me of false starts and failures. There were remnants of big ideas and cool hobbies. There were loads of pictures, toys and keepsakes from my favorite loves. In that unit I was overwhelmed by thoughts of what I had lost, ideas that I had abandoned, talents I had forgotten, great parts of my life that I had suppressed for my own protection. Call me weird, overly emotional, even crazy… but you can never call me the same person I was when I moved my things into that unit. So I cried as I opened that garage door to what was the storage of my “life” for 45 months. This time leaving it open to indicate that I had left, that I was no longer in need of it, that all of my “things” were now somewhere else. Freeing myself from the $115 monthly fee it took to preserve my memories, not just my things. I left that door open and took the lock with me. Closing the chapter of my life I didn’t know I was in, starting something new. A chapter yet to be named.
