Practice

You might think that all of that would have been enough to teach me about the value of stuff. The Universe, however, thought I needed a little independent practice. By 2007, the situation in the household was becoming unbearable. Jean was a depressed narcissist with dementia, my husband was battling depression and my daughter had been diagnosed bi-polar in 2004, her sophomore year in high school. Jean was an unpredictable tyrant. You never know when pulling in the driveway what you would find.

You may be asking why we didn't get help. It was not for lack of trying. Jean was wily and evaded diagnosis. Her doctor was no help, the local mental health system was no help, the police dutifully wrote incident reports, but, in the end were no help. My sister was unable to help, my mother's best friend was unable to help.
We were in this alone. In fact, I felt like I was screaming in a dark room and no one could hear me.

The only help I did have was that of my friends. While I lost my oldest and dearest friend to breast cancer in 2004, I had Ginny, my friend since the seventh grade. She was the only one who really understood what I was going through.

We couldn't live there anymore. Jean was making our lives miserable and it was becoming unbearable. We decided to move. My husband cashed in an old 401K he had and we found a house on Nottingham in Penn Beach. Linda was our landlady and she was our angel that helped us on this particular leg of our journey. Linda was a hairdresser and I felt that maybe Erin, my friend whom I had lost who was also a hairdresser, brought us together to help each other out. Linda was unable to sell her house and decided to rent it to us after we contacted her real estate agent. Renting with three older kids, two dogs, and, at the last minute, a litter of kittens is easier said than done. Linda didn't even blink. She also had kids, dogs and cats and welcomed us. So we moved.

One large truck and 3 movers later we were safe and happy. We had some furniture, but not much. I filled in by shopping at yard sales. It was fun and our little house looked good by the time we were done. The kids had their own rooms, the dogs had a yard, we kept two of the cats and had a wonderful neighbor. Somebody was watching out for us.

One year to the week, Jean fell in the back yard and hit her head. She walked into the hospital but never walked out. We moved back with two truck loads this time and two years later are still working on things, but happy with a minimal amount of stuff and always working to make due with less.

That said, I still frequent yard sales, but buy only what we need, or what I simply can't live without, an example of which you can see in the picture that accompanies today's post.