Downsizing

It's about more than just getting rid of junk.

Photo by Sunrise King on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, my therapist (who has played a key role in maintaining my sanity over the course of the last year) asked me what I wanted my life to look like now. By now, she meant now that you’ve accepted Mike isn’t going to be part of your future. That question came just after I pointed out that the self-imposed six-month trial period for Mike’s stay in residential memory care had come and gone without my even noticing that it had passed.

When I first moved Mike into his new apartment, the only way I got myself through that transition was by thinking about it as a potentially temporary thing: This is not necessarily forever. You can move him home again, if this doesn’t work out.

Still, I knew I had to give it a fair shot at working. Six months, minimum. That would take us through mid-April.

And here we are, in mid-May. I’m still here. Mike’s still there.

Some part of my brain must have been ready to accept the permanence of this transition because donating Mike’s professional wardrobe—all the clothes dating back to his career as a professor—was one of the first tasks I took care of, in his absence. I knew I’d held onto those things far too long, but why? I’m not a sentimental person, but I couldn’t decide whether my choice was driven by denial or magical thinking.

Joan Didion held onto her husband’s shoes after he died because, she thought, he’ll need his shoes when he comes back. Holding onto them felt like a way of ensuring he would return. Was that why I’d held onto Mike’s button-up shirts and khakis? Could I simply not bear to confront the fact that the guy who’d worn those clothes was gone?

Maybe the explanantion was simpler than that: maybe I just didn’t have the time to think about clearing closets while in the throes of daily, hands-on dementia care.

And maybe the complex answer to my simple question was All of the above.

When Eleanor asked what I wanted my life to look like now, I couldn’t come up with an answer. I could not envision a life beyond the one I have: living alone in the house I once shared with Mike and our kids. It’s a house I’ve loved from the first moment I set eyes on it, but a house nonetheless—and I have to admit, the upkeep can feel daunting for one person to manage.

Still, Mike’s memory care facility is only ten minutes away. That proximity is another reason why I feel tied to this place, and it shapes any foreseeable vision of myself.

Eleanor suggested that I continue to give this question some thought. She also told me to give myself the freedom to forget about the constraints of my current reality, since they won’t always be factors I have to consider.

“You’re not required to do anything,” she said. “Just try to think about what you want. What would make you happy.”

I’ve tried, but it’s still a challenge. No matter how hard I work to set myself free.

At first, I wrote off this difficulty to spending the last eight years focused almost exclusively on Mike’s well-being—I was out of the habit of asking questions like What would make me happy? ( For many years, if asked that question, the answer would have been snarky: What would make me happy is if someone else would clean the damn bathroom for the third time today.)

Then I realized that anytime I tried to entertain the thought of a life lived elsewhere, the first barrier I bumped into was I could never move. I have too much stuff.

One of the best parts of my time at Hedgebrook last spring was the spartan existence of living in a cottage specifically designed to accommodate one person: one coffee cup, one bowl, one set of silverware, etc.. I loved that life. And I’ve always been a person who travels light: one carry-on suitcase and a backpack, no matter how long the journey. I recently read a terrific memoir called The Year of Less. Those tiny rooms set up inside IKEA stores? A vision of utopia.

But when I surveyed my kitchen cupboards this week, most of what I could see was stuff I didn’t want or need. Like the plastic plates and high-sided plastic bowls I bought for Mike, when the tremors in his hands started to make eating difficult—they served their purpose, but that time has passed.

I also have more coffee mugs than I will ever use, accumulated over the years. And, on the highest shelf, a set of teeny tiny coffee cups that I have never used. (They came as part of a dinnerware set I wanted; I suppose I kept them as penance for having spent money on them.)

When I looked through the lens of what I wanted, I realized that I actually want very little. Which means the first step toward a life that will make me happy isn’t moving; it’s divesting myself of the stuff that has the power to keep me here.

And, once I’m free of that stuff, perhaps I’ll have cleared enough space for some new vision of my life to begin taking shape.

There’s no shortage of advice for partners who are building new lives after a loss (although, most of the time, loss means death. I think there’s room for expanding on the definition of that word.) Among the most common is “Don’t make any big decisions for the first year.”

This advice makes logical sense: the trauma of loss can lead people to make decisions in the short-term that have implications they might not anticipate. But that kind of inertia can also be destructive. My mom leaned into that advice after my father’s death because it gave her an acceptable reason not to take charge of anything on her own. She never really stopped living in the suspended reality of that first year.

My 80-something next door neighbor, on the other hand, tells me that one of the first things she did after her husband died was get rid of the hulking entertainment center in her living room. “I’d always hated that thing,” she said, “but Sam loved it, so we kept it. And now I have this instead.” She gestured to the light gray console cabinet under her TV. “Much more my style. And I’m the one who’s still living here!”

Early in his illness, when Mike made me promise to place him in memory care when things get really bad, I know he worried that I’d get stuck inside the life we’d built together, unable to find a way out. Memory care, he thought, would at least open a door. And while I’d like to say that was a needless worry, the truth turns out to be a little more complex.

I was feeling stuck inside the life we’d built together—a life that mostly took place inside the walls of this house. But I’m starting to dig my way out. One closet and cabinet at a time, I’m clearing a path to whatever comes next.

Whether I end up living here or somewhere else really doesn’t matter, as long as that life is built for me.