Think Kit Day 5: Aloha

Sarah Moralez
Dec 5, 2014
3 min read

What did you say hello/goodbye to this year? How did you feel the day after? The week after? Did it enrich your life...or detract?

This year I said goodbye to my childhood home. My brother had moved out almost a year after our mother's death. I won't speak for him, but from inside my body it seems I've had a much harder time letting go of the house and all the memories attached with it.

We've had 1 dog, 2 rats, 2 hamsters, and 3 cats in that place (not all at once). Birthdays, holidays, happiness, fights, good news and bad, hard decisions, easy decisions, I found out I was pregnant in that house.

It's also where I found my mother when she passed away. Even with that image seared into my mind of coming home from school and finding her unresponsive on her bedroom floor, I couldn't bring myself to run away from that place fast enough (for once).

I was willing to spend the majority of my inheritance on trying to fix it up to sell it than save the money and get into an apartment or house to rent. Finally, in April 2014, I moved into my apartment. I tried to get as much stuff from the house over to the apartment as I could. I feel like I went through every box in that crowded home to find all of the important things: photos and momentos of our lives (Mom, Chris, and I). I wasn't able to bring the vanity because there was nowhere to put it. My brother didn't want it. I feel like with that I've lost not only a piece of my mom but of my grandmother as well. I was the third generation for that vanity. Nothing special but still completely gorgeous and I miss it. It's hard to push it out of my head that by this point it's probably been set on the curb and someone unworthy has snatched it up and taken it to their home. If anyone's kid puts stickers on that thing I hope they get what's coming to them. *sly, wicked smile*

I realized not too long ago that I didn't have my mom's high school yearbook and I lost it. I broke down and sobbed. I have photos of her when she was a teenager, but the yearbook is something that cannot be replaced.

I've said goodbye to more things than I would have liked this year. I keep swinging back around to the thought that no one is supposed to say goodbye to as much as I have in 31 years. It's supposed to be spread out over a lifetime. Both of my parents died in my 20s, I've done two purges of my chilhood home where I rented a dumpster to throw away everything Chris and I didn't want or wasn't worth holding on to (and there was still so much stuff left over that I had to go through again this year when I moved).

I said hello to downtown living this year, though. That's not a sad thing at all. I love living downtown. I rarely have to leave, I see people more often. James's school is 5-minutes away as is my office (for the time being). I have to decide if I'm going to stay in this apartment that has plenty of room, but isn't the most budget-friendly for a single mom, or move. If I move the place will probably be smaller ... does that mean yet another purge? I can't think of too many things I'd be okay living without. Still I rack my brain looking around at the clothes and things I could actually live without and still be okay.