Tempus Fugit

 There is too much stuff in this house.

 

With the addition of the hospital bed, the wheelchairs and walkers, the shower chair, the lift chair, the stair glide, the oxygen….

 

There is too much stuff in the house.

 

Frankly, it’s making me claustrophobic and I need to make some space.  Seems to me, I have two options:

     1.  I can get rid of my stuff

     2.  I can get rid of Gary's stuff

(I think you see where this is headed).

 

Gary has a collection of antique clocks – a collection he spent years amassing and tending to and fussing over and loving.  I, on the other hand, have always hated those damned clocks.  Because they are antique clocks, they don’t keep time exactly so they were each a few minutes off.  But they chime.   So one would start chiming a few minutes before each hour and then the others would join in a horrible cacophony that lasted for several minutes.  Every hour.  Of every day.  For years.

 

For the last year, Gary has barely been downstairs so the clocks have gone unwound and that means I didn’t have to endure the relentless chiming.  For years I griped about the chiming but, in a “careful what you wish for” development, I’m finding their silence is unnerving.  For the past year, they sat unwound, serving no purpose, telling no time, filling the house with their stillness.

 

So tonight, I got the idea that I would solve the space issue by packing them up and moving them to the basement.  He can’t see them or enjoy them anyway, right?  What’s the harm?  He won’t even know they are packed away so it’s ok, right?  I’m not a horrible person rushing his death so I can have a little breathing room – it’s just clocks.  So to the basement they went. 

 

And now I’m sitting here, wallowing in cognitive dissonance.  He’s still alive.  He still lives here.  So what if he doesn’t see them – is it that big of a deal to just leave them where they are?  But also, I can’t breathe in this house – there’s too much stuff and I can’t get rid of the hospital bed or the oxygen and something has to give before I snap.  So I’ll try to not to worry about his beloved clocks.  Silenced and shoved in the basement.  I’ll try not to imagine that means I’m hurrying demise. But the one thing I’ve learned the past year is we don’t have as much time as we think.