Blast from the past

In doing my house review, I have some simple criteria – is it now or most probably will be useful or does it make me smile. I have two friends that are very dear to me. Neither of them are the suburban nice but Pottery Barn style. One is a collector and a tad bit of a compulsive collector aka clutter and the other is very European and has simple quit yet warm lines with lots of growth space. I have sometimes though that if I could run head long in to both I would have just the place that was good for me. The initial phase of the house spirit stuff has been dreadful... and while it is more organized dreadful, it is still many piles of stuff to go to someone, or someplace. I could not move everything out of the house, decide a space/home for my treasures and then put back, what will stay. .. so I have had to live with some staging places... tools, books etc.
In addition to my stuff, I house inherited stuff from Chuck and then brought to the house stuff that could be important from Buffalo as well as my Mom’s apartment stuff when she passed. There is stuff. But I am more sentimental than you might think and so not easy to just dump for the stake of looks.
When you go through things that are often older than yourself and have been without through your journey, you are pulled back to other times and for me it was the 47 years of work. In the past 24 hrs, I have had contact with two former clients.
One was a terrific e-mail from a Mother of a young boy that was on the razor’s edge for retreating from life or moving on to become a remarkable gifted person. The boy had a severe case of childhood anxiety and to be honest, the mother had a pretty bad case of Motherhood anxiety. A deadly combination. Interestingly, he was one of the few children who did not like me and I had to step out of ego and work through a special ed teacher.
The other was a call from a daughter of a woman that was in a therapy group that I ran for several years back in the 70’s.. The daughter had just comeback from closing Mom’s home in Fl to bring her mom to her home with her family. The client has multiple major health issues the least of which incontinence, raging ADHD, breathing issues and a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball. She will go into the hospital on Wed to do what they are not sure but her claustrophobia makes the MRI nearly impossible etc. The daughter who called at dinner wondered if I could come to her home in Greece at 8 to spend time with her Mom. They had found the phone number and it was very important that her mom see me. Of course I went. And when I sat to engage with Mom she remembered many things that I had said over 30 years ago- very clinical of course... never travel without a trench coat... which was very true for me when I trained across Europe. Never make a decision without drinking a cup of coffee...I used anything to slow down the reaction time... etc. Here was this broken little woman, a very good artist, tethered to an oxygen tank, with a morphine pump and on a snowy night in Greece, I was the therapist I have always been – I stepped out of my own way and let the universe do it’s thing. Like every session and contact over the many years of work, I smiled, said thank you for the experience. All the opinions of my neighbors, times of misunderstandings, etc. where very dim. I was very good at my craft....and am very proud of what I have done with my life. Let me be an instrument of your peace.