July 27, 2019 Basic Training in My Household

My son got a new bed. This means that his whole room had to be dissembled, the old bed taken apart(which was no easy task; it was a mammoth bed whose skeletons now resides in the dump), furniture rearranged, and while in the process, it was a perfect opportunity to clean the closet, and sort through the clutter that has been stuffed away in various locations throughout the years. I anticipated this to take one day. I underestimated just how much one little boy can stuff away, and just how much one mama had invested in the bedroom bulge. It was like looking at a monster that I had fed with Legos, art supplies, toy trucks, cars, train tracks, etc. I had gorged the beast with objects.  I needed a beer to even think about looking that aberration of nature in the eye. Liquid courage some call it!
      As I began taking objects apart, I barked orders at Joaquin. "Sort through that shelf first! Make a donate pile, a trash pile, and a keep pile!" I was a commando on a mission. No sweetness resided in my voice. It was do or die! This was going to be methodical, efficient; the beast was going down! As we began to sort through that hideous, Lego-foot stabbing, massive nemesis; objects began emerging that whispered of a time long past. Joaquin's old t-ball bat and multiple mits (apparently, one was not enough for my burgeoning baseball star), and I recalled his brief stint in t-ball when his shining moment was standing in the outfield with his hands down his pants scratching his kahonas. He had truly latched onto the essence of organized sports. I was proud of him! His old coloring books and pictures made an appearance in this drama as well. His tiny, untrained hands had tried to color in the lines but the blues, reds, and yellows would find themselves blossoming in different directions with no heed to the lines. Most people say that is because kids don't have muscle memory in their hands, yet I tend to think that a kid's mind is wildly beautiful and untrained in the lines of conformity.  Oh, how I cherished the evidence of  that innocent freedom! All the homemade valentines I had ever made Joaquin surfaced, evidence of my lack of artistic skill, but also of my son's enduring sentimentalism. The fact that he had kept all of them softened my commando heart.
     There was more; lots more; in fact, I came to realize that I was sorting through my son's childhood, and not only his childhood, but the chimera I was facing was this looming knowledge that my son is moving out of the innocence of elementary school and into the trials and tribulations of adolescence. Jesus, Allah,  Vishnu, and all the gods out there, help me! All those things marked a time that both Joaquin and I had cherished and still do, but because Joaquin got a new bed, he also got more space. With more space, comes the opportunity to make new memories.  One day, we will have to face that monster of a bedroom. Who knows what I will find? I will probably need more than just one beer.

This is just the stuff we are donating! The trash pile was a lot larger, but I didn't capture the trash on photo; there is no point in living in the past!