When I was growing up, I was the least affluent of my friends. I had many affluent moments and a handful of exposures to some great wealth, but generally speaking…

There were 3 significant homes I had with my mother. The most impactful -relevant to this post- was the house I lived in during my late junior high to high school years. I’ve written of it before. Worth a read. A short story.

Needless to say, i’ve come to reflect on it as a tiny museum shop, without the fantasy that term might actually suggest. There were walls covered in pictures and shelves with stuff, tedious furniture items mainly used to display other things on, multiple shadow boxes filled with tiny bric-a-brac and knick-knacks. It was so much stuff, so much clutter, and so overwhelming. And I was embarrassed by ALL of it, because I saw it all as junk, and I felt like my mom was a pack rat! Yes I will admit, I  was both embarrassed of my environment and my mom. This currently breaks my heart to admit.

antique vintage medicinal bottles

Far left bottle: Greenville Ave in Dallas, Texas. The street I live off of now! 1950 prescription.

vintage antique first aid kit

Notice the tiny, white ammonia stick, to wave under someone’s nose!

I see it all so differently now. It was, and is such awesome fucking shit! Only in the last 10 years has there been an extreme liquidation and letting go. My mother has exhausted her love for these things and come to terms with others wanting to love with new enthusiasm. I’m really proud of her. People get on Ebay and spend ridiculous sums for the sum of what my mom has/had. The valuables, necessary memorabilia, and phenomenal wardrobe items, I am slowly coming into. There’s lots i wont see go. I am always of the mindset to ‘clean house and get rid of’, but I am also coveting.

This rearing environment is directly why I am so meticulous, fastidious, and an annoying clean freak to some. I have lived the extreme difference.

There is so much history and  family heirlooms. I will always have contempt for ‘stuff’, but I also have a new appreciation for why my mother accumulated and displayed. My closest friends preferred hanging out at my home, loved looking over things, and having private visits with my mother: the irony. The earlier link on this house hints to this as well.

It is said wisdom comes with age, and I’m certain time provides more clarity on our roots, too. -whether we come to appreciate it more- or maybe our original emotions and feelings about our childhood  don’t ever waiver, and we just come to terms with *it*. I am a non apologist minimalist clean-freak, constantly wiping away. I’m also comfortably letting a lot just be, letting a lot of the old dust come to settle.

Zen Thinking