My husband has been home since last week, so I haven't been able to write. Now that he's out swimming with our son, I'm taking advantage of the alone time to sit down and write a quick post before starting the laundry.
So, we're getting closer to V-day. Well, it'll be V-day for me, and I suppose it might be a little selfish of me to view it that way. But nevertheless, things are progressing pretty quickly now. Last Sunday, I suggested my husband take advantage of his week home from work to go through our stuff with me. He refused to talk about it, and the subject was dropped. But as the week moved on and our position became more secure, by Wednesday my Dear Hubby (DH) began going through his mother's stuff that's been stored in two of our three lower-level rooms for the last six months. He sorted through it, and through some of our own displaced possessions, as well, and we decided what to try to sell together. Which of our own things to sell. Not to sell his mother's. His mother's things will be transferred to his brother's place in Heidelberg, to the delight of the brother and his current female partner.
The subject of DH's mother's stuff is a touchy one in general, since all are in agreement that she should have taken care to rid herself of it or should have shipped it to Greece long ago, before she officially moved out of her Stuttgart apartment and left Germany for good. Instead, she just packed it all into boxes and made two of her sons cart it, carload by carload, to occupy half of the lower level of our house. It's an endless assortment of household things that should have been thrown away, along with her electronics, and exercise bike and a couple of pieces of furniture. But this kind of presumption and imposition is typical of her narcissistic and careless behavior, and not at all surprising in spite of the bad feelings it incurs.
The next two days were spent sorting through our son's toys, most of which will be left behind. Our son was very good about letting go of his belongings. Part of it was he's very easy going. Part of it was that most of those things are simply too young for him now, a big-big six-year-old about to start big-boy school in the fall. But just as I suspected would happen, my nurturing child was very reluctant to let go of his stuffed animals, even the ones he hasn't looked at in 18 months. So, the stuffed-animal pile is bigger than is convenient. He also, not surprisingly, was reluctant to let go of a good half of his books. Just like Mommy. I'm tempted to quietly slip some of those animals and books into the trash pile. He'll never miss them.
Next come the boxes of things I've already sorted through, and with DH's help to bolster my courage (he's not the type to hold on to things), we should be able to reduce those three boxes still further.
So the gist of all this is, DH is finally committed to leaving. We've been emptying our house out little by litte. He's even suggested that my son and I leave for Chicago in the first half of July. DH will follow about the middle of August, after he's settled our affairs here, to be there in time for our son's first day of school.
It's possible that I'll be back home in Chicago in less than three weeks. Hard to imagine, after all that's passed.
