Once again, my blog could be much more appealing, if anyone ever reads it, if I knew how to upload appropriate memes or cute photos. Ironically, this post is about the ability to take pictures and why it is significant.
This morning I was not sleeping well, which isn't really unusual. I had awakened at 3 am and my head was just aimlessly swimming around with an occasional focus on silent prayers. Sometime before 6 I suddenly realized I didn't know where our camera was. We will be driving to our daughter Angela's later this week to spend the holidays and will have the wonderful opportunity to be with her family as well as Victoria and kids. I want to be able to take our camera.
Lest you find my consternation trivial, let me explain. About 8 years ago, we left a house and neighborhood I totally loved, putting nearly all of our belongings in storage, and spent a year traveling to visit friends and family, including 3 months with our son in Lithuania. It was a great adventure but we grew weary of living out of our car and not having a stable life. We found a neglected old house in Dayton, OH which we determined could be restored to at least nearly its original grandeur (if you go click on old posts at the bottom of the page, you can connect WAAAAAY back to before and after pictures of all of our work). Our time in Ohio was filled with some good times and some very trying times and some very tragic times. When my father was diagnosed with cancer after my mother had fallen and was in a nursing home, my sisters and I agreed to take turns flying in and out to be with Dad while he underwent chemo to lengthen his life. There was no possibility of cure so we knew the end was coming. I spent a lot of time sorting through things trying to streamline belongings enough so that if ever Mom managed to recover, it would be easier to care for her at home. Instead of improving, she grew weaker until she could no longer stand. I had to return to Ohio (where Russ stayed in the house we had mostly finished) to do our income taxes. As things worked out, the time ended up being for me to sort through, organize, and pack the entire house in preparation for moving to AZ. My father died while I was gone. After a flight to AZ for his funeral, I returned to put things in storage, once again, and drive some of our things with Russ down to AZ. I spent the next several years continuing to sort, organize, dispose of, and eventually we returned to Ohio to empty the storage space and load a truck and move everything to AZ where we piled it in the living room. As I visited Mom every day, most days twice a day, until closer to the end when she slept more, I ended up opening boxes, sorting Mom and Dad's stuff, driving around the country a couple of times to deliver items to family who wanted them, and even filled a trailer and truck with needed items to furnish a household for our daughter who was separating from her husband and had only her clothes (we also drove up to Spokane with the load then to North Carolina to move her in). In the past couple of months, I have once again been sorting, organizing, and packing preparing for an estate sale to clear out Mom and Dad's home after she passed away. We are going on a mission for the LDS Church so, once again, we needed to put our belongings in a storage space. It's more complicated but I'm trying to give a condensed version to get to my main point as to why not knowing where our camera was caused me to start the day in tears.
Russ used to laugh at me because I could never decide whether to have vanilla or chocolate ice cream or a hamburger or cheeseburger or to bring a sweater or not. I have found making decisions to be quite stressful. Fortunately, I have matured a little to the point that I can make decisions a little more easily. But today I am relying on the generosity of others in a very comfortable home where I try to keep my belongings as unobtrusive as possible- not because of any expectation of others but because I am grateful for friends' hospitality and don't want to be any more bother than necessary. My family is the most important aspect of my life and my family photos have now been in a box since leaving Ohio in 2010. My belongings are not of major importance to me but stability and a feeling of home IS important to me. I don't have that and haven't had it for a long time now. I have been doing my best to hold it together despite the unavoidable stresses of my life. When I laid in bed thinking about packing the car to drive to Louisiana and had absolutely no idea where my camera was, I just couldn't deal with it. I started a real pity party. I am just so tired of sorting, packing, and trying to figure out what to do with stuff. After explaining my sorrow and frustration to Russ, we determined we would just have to spend some major time wading through the stuff we had crammed into the storage space looking in logical possible boxes until we found the camera....... or spend money to buy a smartphone since cameras are becoming extinct. (Try it- just go to a store and see if you can find a simple camera to purchase!) Another decision!
I grabbed my robe and went to take a shower. When I returned to the bedroom and went to hang the robe over the closet door where I keep it so I can quickly put it on since we are living with other people and I can't just go around without clothes on, there was the camera. I had hung it on the knob of the closet door when we moved all our stuff in here a couple of weeks ago and I hadn't seen it because it was under my robe. huh..... I rejoiced and gave thanks to a loving Heavenly Father that I could avoid yet another choice and some very frustrating time trying to find a piece of my life in the rubble. I hope I sleep better tonight.
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