While I Wait

Those of you who know me know I am an organizer and a planner. I have lists for everything.

But how do you plan for an event that has an uncertain date in uncertain weather during uncertain times?

Meagan is due February 24^th, and I am getting more and more worked up at the prospect of seeing this baby.

But the baby is making no promises of arriving on the 24^th.

And the weather is supposed to be snowy and icy the next couple days. More snow is on the horizon for later this week and into next week. Who knows what the weather will be like after that. For traveling purposes, it would be nice for the baby to make an appearance during a break in the weather.

Then there’s the pandemic. Because of the pandemic, we need to quarantine two weeks prior to the baby’s birthday. But since his birthday is the 24^th +/- 14 days, I came back from Florida on January 29^th.  I told Meagan the baby was free to come on February 13^th. It is now February 16^th.

Despite the weather and being locked inside for an undetermined amount of time, I have managed to keep busy. I always manage to keep busy. I can be very imaginative at coming up with a project or two. (The kids have always been afraid to tell me they are bored.)

Both of my most recent projects have taken me down to the cellar – or basement. One of friends gave me grief for calling it a cellar. But I looked up the two words in the dictionary. 

• Cellar – a room below ground level in a house, typically one used for storing [stuff]. The dictionary indicates stuff is typically wine or coal. 
• Basement – the floor of a building which is partly or entirely below ground level. As in a basement flat.

Although I am not storing wine or coal down there, right now it is much more of a storage facility than a flat so I stick by the term cellar.

About fifteen months ago, we moved from our house of 30 years and downsized to a condo. I thought I had done a fantastic job of getting rid of stuff before the move. Dave is constantly complaining about how much I get rid of. But this is what the cellar looked like after the move. 

Back then I was sending my mother photos of the progress we were making as we moved in. A few days after I sent her these, she texted me back saying “I’m still chuckling.”

Since then, I have managed to get rid of some of these necessities that we felt compelled to bring with us from Dunstable. And over these past couple of weeks, I have reorganized what is left so that most of it is against the walls leaving an open space in the middle. In the short term, I envision the baby racing around on a tricycle down there with a road painted on the floor by David. In the long term, perhaps a basement flat. 

This is what the cellar looks like now.

You will notice  I have added a table since the original move. The table has traveled from Chelmsford to New Hampshire to Wisconsin to Iowa to New Hampshire to Methuen. There may have been more travel destinations in there that I am not aware of. It was supposed to end up in Vermont rather than Methuen, but as with so many things, it somehow ended up with me.

Fortunately, this table is perfect for my second project – organizing all of our family photos. I’ve been down there for hours, days on end. Heather FaceTimed me one day while I was down there, and, after seeing where I was, she asked me what I was doing. I told her organizing photos. She asked “Haven’t you been doing that since Dunstable?”

Why, yes I have.

It’s a process.

For a while now (since Dunstable) I’ve been forcing myself to get rid of a bunch of photos to make the quantity more manageable. It’s harder than you think. For example, I’d like to eliminate the photos that are close to being duplicates. However, the close to duplicates sometime show a tiny difference in expression that I find difficult to part with. Then there are the blurry photos. Or poorly composed photos. Even they can show a connection between two people that makes you smile. Such a photo can show a place as it used to be. Or a person that you miss. How can you throw away a photo of a very much missed person if you know there will be no more?

Then there are the bins of photos we inherited from my mother-in-law. These bins contain a lot of true duplicates of my photos. When the kids were little, I used to print out doubles of my photos, and then I would split the doubles between my mother-in-law and my mother. Now those duplicates are coming back at me, but they are mixed in with originals that they took. So, it’s a matter of sorting through them, merging them with what I have, and then reinserting them into albums. (My mother’s photos are still up at the lake and have not made it to my to do list yet.)

At this point, I don’t think the order of all the photos is quite right, but I keep telling myself I need to let it go. Meanwhile, my husband is constantly asking me in an accusatory tone “You’re not throwing away any good photos, are you?”

I started with the photos from 1989, the year Meagan was born. I’m now up to November of 1991. Here’s my how-it-started/how-it’s-going take.

Many of you most likely think I’m crazy, and you might be right. But while I’m hunkering down waiting for the baby to make his arrival, it keeps me busy. It keeps me from obsessing over the weather forecast. It keeps me from constantly checking Find My Friends to make sure Meagan isn’t at the hospital and they forgot to tell me. 

I also like it down there. It is surprisingly warm and somehow peaceful. I tell Nicole it is my happy place. And there is no rush with what I am doing. I can take my time.

I bet you still think I’m crazy.