You are your Parents' Child

Dear Bloggers,


This week we'll be discussing family and the cold chill you feel when the first time you realize: "Wow... I AM just like my mother and/or father..." Or the time you realize that your baby brother/sister is no longer a baby, but an adult. Or what about those family members that make you want to skip those tedious reunions? We'll touch it all this week!!


Last weekend was Mother's Day, and what did Mother Nature bring my mother? A big, nasty basement flood. All of the crap...errr... I mean, antiques my mother has down there had the potential to be ruined, so it was up to me and my baby sister Kayla to try to salvage as much as we could. We lined the couches and tables ("Why do we have so many tables down here, it's not like we EAT down here...") with plastic, and began to flip chairs on top of them to get them out of the water. We moved lamps, and "antique" radios that didn't even WORK, because to my mother, "EVERY THING'S worth saving!!"


While picking up a speaker that went to a radio that moved from the house YEARS ago I began to have a flashback. Last summer, I was moving into my BEAUTIFUL/expensive apartment on campus for my last semester of summer classes. I called my cousin and two friends to help me move. After packing many of my things, my room and entire floor was covered in random sheets of paper and knick-knacks. My friend Torrey came up to help me, entered my room and got this look of surprise and disappointment when he realized that the "30 minute moving excursion" I falsely promised him was going to take HOURS. As patient as he is, he still helped me without complaining, and helped me pick up the crap... errrr... I mean knick-knacks and paper off my floor and put them into a random shopping bag I had, with the intent of taking them to my new place.


"Kendra," Torrey had just picked up a shoe that didn't have a mate off my floor. "I hate to say this, but I think you're sort of a pack-rat." The moment he said these words, my life flashed before my eyes. I saw my grandmother sitting down in her living room with things askew and a random tile lying on her hardwood floor, amiss all the other things. I saw my mother proudly put some "California Raisins" figurines on the desk in our office saying what a great find they were, and she would sell them on "Ebay" (five years later... enough said). Then, I saw me in my potential future, sitting in my living room as an old woman, hair a mess, glasses missing one arm and slipping down my face. My grand kids would come in, and look confused as to where to sit, because all of my crap....this time, I really mean crap.... was inhabiting all the chairs and couches. As they stood, I picked up a sheet of paper and explain: "Babes, this paper was stuck to the shoe of Barack Obama, ain't that something, babes?!"


I looked at Torrey, and gave him a huge hug. I grabbed my trash can and started dumping things in. I was visibly upset, not just for the fact that in the future I would no longer have my perfect 20/20 vision (which, to be honest, was already beginning to go now), but for the times I ridiculed my mother for keeping things that seemed so irrelevant. Now, here I am in the same boat!!


I was able to get rid of three bags filled with my "knick-knacks" and actually shortened my moving adventure. I promised myself that was a future I could not, WOULD NOT allow myself to have!!


While picking the speaker out of the water, I began to wonder if I was relapsing back into my pack-rat syndrome, and mentally made a list of things to throw away.


So to you, readers, no matter what family disposition you might have a potential of inheriting (addiction, abuse, or a lack to throw things away), the good news is: that does not have to be your future. For every locked window, there's a door, and the key to open my door was to throw away my random shoe (that I ended up finding the mate for in the back of my home closet). For all of you, I hope you can discover your keys as well!!

STAY ENCOURAGED!!