The Man In the Garage

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Today, I finished, at least for the most part, dismantling the last of my husband's life and parting it from my own. He's been gone nearly 3 years now (in December) but I just now have gotten around to tearing apart his domain, the garage.



I'd always pretty much left the garage alone. Went out there to the freezer, and to fetch the occasional tool, but otherwise, that was where Kel lurked, where he stashed the things he wanted to keep, where he kept all the paraphernalia of his favorite activities.

Hunting
Fishing
Tennis
Crap collecting (seriously weird stuff in there)

None of which interested me, except I did like fishing now and then. The hunting I hated, and the hunting is...was...the most evidenced in the garage.

As mentioned previously, I rented a dumpster to get rid of everything that I'd tossed into the garage to get it out of the way while I redid my house. When Kel got sick (well before actually) until he died, my house inside was an embarrassment. Cement floors, crappy furniture, boring white walls, cracked linoleum. Why? Why was it like this? Cuz Kel didn't give a damn. He was more concerned about his own entertainment and his appearance to others than about these 'trivial' things. No one ever came to our house and with good reason. It was horrible.

Within a month of his death, I had the entire house's contents given away or thrown into the garage. NOTHING in my house was ever seen by his eyes.

Nothing.

I am very serious about that, btw.

This was done with full approval and enthusiasm of my two kids. I was aided by my friend Tammie, who came down from Georgia to help me shred the house to bits. In fact she came twice, did things I simply couldn't, and I will forever appreciate that.

It took me about a year to go through his clothes, which I hauled up to a friend (who sadly, views me as the enemy now, though if he really truly tried to understand what I had been through and which he found himself going through, and what I was seeing taking place within his own home--which we had talked deeply about over and over again, guess he forgot all that--he might would've understood a little better why I simply could not and would not deal with what I saw going on). Tangent there, sorry. But that will always smack me, the hatred and refusal to understand that I faced. Always will. *shrugs*

Thank god for Lexapro, and the love of my N, and my true friends who took the time to understand, including my MIL who remains a wonder to me. None more than N though. (and okay sorry babe, just a little bit of smoosh, can't help it)

Anyway. It took a year before I could dissect the closet--the last part of the inside-the-house life that was Kel's.

It has taken me nearly three to finally take apart his last domain, and now, at last, it is done.

As I was tossing those skulls, turkey tails, deer heads, hunting gear and clothes and boots and shoes into the dumpster, I noted the fact that had I looked into the mirror, I would've seen a face curiously indifferent. That sounds harsh, but I realized today that that which I was disposing of was the man that really was Kel deep down...and I didn't recognize him. This was not the man I had fallen for and married and had kids with (at least the first) so many years ago--the man who eventually stashed away pure junk (piles of it), had raccoon tails and feathers pinned to boards, who had so many 'sheds' (deer horns left about each year by newly-anterless deer so they can grow the next set) they could've filled a trash barrel. I truly made faces tossing all that crap away. Disgusting, just horribly disgusting. (The deer heads, btw, were the first to be removed from my house and tossed into the garage--one day after he died).

There were other things as well--an insane collection of medicine bottles, a folder of receipts I never saw, tons of mail, boxes of shoes bought and barely worn, thermoses, nails, old equipment, car junk, tennis balls (kept those for the doggies) and more skulls, sheds, COW skulls (3 of them!) and tons of junk, more junk, saved as important god only knows why.

I found a few treasures--his dad's collection of coins, silver dollars of real silver that I will give to my son--and alot of photographs he'd hoarded of the kids. A huge box of them. But everything else...tossed.

I realize someone could probably have used these things, but I just wanted them gone. And now they are.

It was a very cleansing experience, saying goodbye to this man who I was married to, who I no longer knew. That was the biggest problem with our marriage--we didn't know each other by the time he died. I will never understand why he could not--would not--use those tools out there for his own family, but instead would bend over backward for his friends, helping them. I will never understand the thousands spent on hunting crap and deer leases and all those trips hunting, when the kids and I had to walk on cement floors.

I will never understand why he got angry when I would buy shoes for Tiff without telling him, yet I counted 8--EIGHT!!!--pair of Prince tennis shoes, some barely worn.

I will never understand why I stayed with him, why I allowed the loss of self that I experienced to happen.

I think--I'd like to believe--that had he not gotten sick, that I would've found the strength to leave but I really don't know if I would've. I'd built such a vivid inner life, a secret life, secret friends, a whole world of me that he did not know and in an odd way was okay with that. I got used to it. That was normal for me. Normal and just the way things were. He hated so much of what I loved, from my job (it isn't a real job, he would tell me, constantly pressuring me to apply at Lockheed) to my friends (I refuse to say what he thought of my beloved Tammie, Allan and Leigh Ann), to my writing. Even after getting published, he proudly (I swear) proclaimed he knew nothing about anything I did. (I remember his boss, who loved my book, being suitably horrified--that shocked him. HA!)

I will never know what he spent all that money on. Food, entertainment, friends. The last month's bank statement was very telling.

We never talked much about his dying young, btw. The only time we did, he told me he didn't think I'd be able to handle being on my own.

He really didn't know me, did he?

I guess I had a love-dismayed relationship with him. I didn't hate him, there were parts of him I still loved...I just...didn't like him much anymore.

But he was sick, very sick, with CHF and five years tops to live, and all those things (i.e., me) had to be shoved away and forgotten.

So, I've spent the nearly last three years, working toward rebuilding my life again. Rebuilding me. After today, as I tossed that last, eww, skull (a fox? a coyote? I dunno don't wanna know) I realized that my life HAS been rebuilt. The past is where it belongs, I can now remember the good times we had, and have thrown away the bad, permanently.

No wonder I am so damn happy these days.

Okay for grins, here is my tale of the dumpster. This is inside the packed-to-the-yellow-line dumpster:



To aid in perspective, here is the outside, with my car:



Inside the garage--still have lots to organize, but it is getting there. That kitchen cabinet thing--I'd like to do something with that, actually, except I have nowhere in my house to put it. No room. But it is old and cool and unfortunately has been in hot garages (not just mine) for years and years.



And here of course is the requisite puppy post. Didn't think I'd forget that, now did you? Ignore the window--I am going through stuff and can't leave it on the floor, as Maddox likes to chew book corners *sigh* and shred stuff *sigh*. So things are tossed up there for now. LOL.

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