Happy Birthday, Julia!

We have spent this first half of January clearing out the old, sorting, parting with, bringing in some new, and a good deal of that went on in Julia’s bedroom.

To back up a bit, I have always loved making a big deal about Julia’s bedroom.  Before she came home, I made a pretty girly but not over-stimulating bedroom for her in our Indianapolis home. By the time we moved to Madison 9 months later, she was firmly established as a dinosaur connoisseur and so I designed, painted and decorated a room filled with colorful dinos. She wanted them colorful and wanted her dino toys all around. That was a busy and stimulating room that she really liked. When her taste changed to all things Harry Potter, we made a Gryffindor room—My favorite piece in it was a wand shelf right by her bed. When we moved to Massachusetts, she had almost left HP behind although we hung some of the pictures she was still attached to and we hung some anime posters she was leaning towards. We put up the book shelves she always had and stacked the bins of Littlest Pet Shop critters, Lego and dinosaurs because she wanted them near. Moving house last February, we got to pick out paint colors. Julia picked hers. She decided she didn’t want books in her room (which admittedly was not easy for me) and she was even ambivalent about the anime posters. So, the room, except for the pretty paint on the walls, has looked pretty generic and like she just moved in for the last year. Some stuff on the shelves—toys and art supplies—but lots of piles on the floor with stuff she couldn’t decide about keeping and didn’t know where to put.

In my mind, and I know it is not her mind, the room spoke of transition. The push and pull of moving on to the next stage of life with the tug to hold onto what was and without a path to where she is going next.  

It was the piles of stuff on the floor that got to me and the chest of drawers that was not as functional as they use to be that got to her.  And then, there was her request for a gaming computer with a real table and chair. I was torn about that one. After struggling with online time, I was not sure I wanted to invite a more powerful gaming machine into the house; however, this was the first desire that Julia has expressed in a long time and she told me she also wanted to do some online art work with it.  

So, finally on New Year’s Eve, we went to IKEA and bought a new dresser, a table and chair.  It took me almost a week to put that furniture together—I am not gifted in building anything.  Julia’s patience and skill at Lego building helped a good deal.

We went through clothes to put them in the new dresser.  Then we took everything else out of her room to figure out how the new furniture fit into the room. That meant that Julia’s ‘everything’ was on the hall and living room floors with a bit of what she was at that moment sorting on her floor.  It was the kind of mess that drives me nuts—And I know, I instigated that whole thing.

At the same time, I check our town’s website and discovered that it was the last day of the holiday tree collection. I didn’t want to miss that, so we quickly took all the decorations off the tree to get the empty tree out to the curb. 

And so, the floor space in the living room that was not taken up by Julia’s stuff was occupied by holiday stuff. I was so unhappy with the volume of chaos and there was no quick cure. We occupied the kitchen and my bedroom  for a few days as we put away the holidays into the plastic bins that live in the basement. Julia was more of a help than she has been before and I was grateful.

Then, we finally got around to sorting the piles that were her stuff. She let go of games and art supplies and after struggling, some of the miscellaneous stuff that sat in piles on her floor. She kept the bins of Lego and dinosaurs (never a question there), some art supplies, all her canvases, most of the anime posters and enough miscellaneous stuff to make her happy. Yesterday, we were finally in the position to put things back into her room and to hang canvases and posters on her walls. I used some of the time of Julia’s sorting to sort my own craft draws and I let go of scrapbook paper, tissue, fake flowers, picture mats, ribbon, stencils. Stuff I had not used in years and that I could not foresee using in the near future. I put it all in a somewhat large box and offered it on our town’s free cycle site. So far, no takers.

By the end of the weekend—because it took our entire three day weekend to finish it all—I could breathe a sigh of relief.  It is not the order that I crave yet—games and puzzles, craft supplies, random kid stuff and a big chest of drawers need to leave the house—but the stuff is stacked, or in boxes and bags and all of it confined to just under half of the living room. The extreme chaos is gone.  

And Julia says she is pleased with the result. The room seems to fit where she is right now.  Her room is not calm by any means, but there is something of her in the anime posters, abstract paintings and Japanese memorabilia that decorate her walls.  Her cello and music stand have a more dedicated space and the new chest of drawers has a smaller profile than the old one. The table awaits the computer that I have not found as of yet.  And most of the art supplies, that she is not interested in keeping but I am not ready to let go of, sit in my craft drawers out of her sight.

I mourned some of the letting go—hers and mine. I always mourn some of the letting go. That gut desire to hold on, to keep what was and no longer is as close to in the present as I can surfaces with each sorting of stuff. Prior to this weekend, I considered Julia’s desire to hold on—to clothes, toys, and that holy miscellaneous stuff— different from my own. After all, I was holding on to great-nana’s china, the furniture of my married life, my mother’s wine glasses and clothes I no longer had use for. I can’t even make my list appear more weighty than hers! Perhaps our desires are not as different as I imagined.  Maybe our venn diagram of letting go has a larger overlap that I knew.

I like that.

And some good news with this birthday, especially remembering that it was the day before Julia’s birthday last year that marked her last day in the educational system and the beginning of the dizzying drop off to adult services. Last week, Julia began to attend a new day program. We are cautiously optimistic that it is a good place for her right now.  She is starting slowly, part-time for now. She has come home happy for four days over two weeks.  A good beginning.

This is a strange birthday. Things that were planned for the day have cancelled. Museums are closed and it is snowing. Julia wants to take a nap after working at the library, and I just got a text that her new program has closed for the week because of a covid outbreak. 

So, we’ll pivot again. And again. And yet again. And pray, light some candles and cross some fingers that Julia’s new year will be splendid and exciting and full of much more joy that the last few have been.