When Life Gets Messy: The Journey That Led Me to Organizing
An urgent call from the hospital informed me my 90-year-old grandmother had a stroke. I cancelled my work assignments and drove seven hours to see her. My heart sank when I saw her. It was a touchy time for her recovery. However, slowly and gradually grandma regained strength, but not enough to return to living alone. She was unaccepting the notion of moving to assisted living, but it was out of her control.
Before downsizing
Trip after trip, I loaded my car and brought to her at the rehabilitation center clothes, jewelry, photos and the like for her to decide what she wanted to keep. We were hardly making a dent in her double-wide mobile home with two or more of everything in it. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, three clothing closets, four dressers and two sheds all full of decades of stuff in every nook and cranny.
Time was of the essence and continually bringing things to my grandmother was an unrealistic task to accomplish in my short time there, so we changed directions. Grandma had to tell me what she wanted from the house, and I had to use my best judgement in prioritizing things to keep. My heart was torn between visiting her and having to make many phone calls associated with her next move and what to do with her house and the possessions in it, she, of course, wanted it all. I just wanted to be a supportive granddaughter visiting my grandmother during her recovery, but I suddenly had a tremendous amount of business to take care of for her next living situation. Grandma, all the while, asserted her desire to go home.
During previous years, grandma was strongly resistant to any family helping her thin out or clean her home. One time, she stood in the doorway yelling at me as I painted the shed that the landlord was going to fine her for it being an eyesore. She didn’t want to live with me in a state away from her home of 50 years, yet she didn’t trust a stranger to assist her either. Overwhelmed and dismayed, I sat on grandma’s living room floor and cried as these flashbacks surmounted along with the clutter around me like walls caving in on me. After mustering up the energy to make phone calls to doctors, nurses, social worker, movers, landlord, and tending to estate planning -oh my! - someone suggested hiring an Organizer.
“What’s an Organizer?” I didn’t know they existed, but I found one!
For two days the Organizer was steady-minded while I had breakdowns. I just wanted to be with grandma. The organizer was quick and knew what to do guiding me along the way to set up for an estate sale. Hiring her was invaluable. The place was not perfect, but things were in order. It made being there and the sale so much more doable, that is until the air conditioning unit went out during the state’s heat wave. Few wanted to go shopping, but some things did sell.
Without a working air conditioner in grandma’s house I was like hot tuna in a tin can, so I ended up sleeping on the patio that night! This didn’t help the uncertain demise I was physically facing either. It was a burdening struggle I was facing in my life at the time, and I was trying to be there for grandma’s health ambiguity. What a pair we were in trying to deal with everything!
A couple of days later, a moving truck arrived to take furniture that grandma wanted, of which I calculated would fit, along with many boxes of clothes, whatnots and papers. The new place lacked the storage grandma once had, so unemptied boxes lined up along the patio door. I had already put away what I could. For some, it is a hard concept to grasp that contents from a 1,000+ square foot home will not fit into 320 square feet. It was a hazard for the boxes to remain there. Grandma was overwhelmed that she would have to sift through her stuff alone. It was time for me to return home.
It was a sad, distressing whirlwind for my grandmother and me. Grandma's house was sold with everything else left in it to the landlord. For grandma it was a sorrowful way to conclude her life at her home where she lived for so long. Grandma was now adjusting to life in a facility without family near to visit, but she was smiling again as she began meeting people in her new community.
After: Settled into assisted living apartment
This was, and is, real life. There was nothing perfect about the sudden urgency of a crisis and chaos that ensued. We did the best we could in the circumstances and the two-week timeframe we had to work on. The little bit of peace of mind I gained was when the Organizer was there to help me.
That first-hand experience prompted me to work as a subcontractor with three Professional Organizers in my area. It turned out that all the organizing I had done since I was a child was something useful after all; so, I changed my career gaining more experience and training in the field. Now, nine years later, I am excited to launch Handiwork Organizing, LLC. My passion is to assist people in letting go of the unnecessaries through decluttering, empower people in downsizing while they can still make the choices themselves. It brings me great satisfaction and joy to assist others in organizing their spaces, so they obtain more practicality and peace in their daily lives.
It is inevitable that we all will face final destinations here on earth with a friend, loved one or ourselves. How can we live life today with less clutter in our environments and our minds so we can focus on what truly matters to us?
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