things we found while cleaning, part 1
Cleaning the Closets
image description: Fancy Nancy is sitting on the floor of the hall closet. There are shelves lining two of the three visible walls; these shelves are packed full to the ceiling with boxes, bags, and linens. Fancy Nancy is looking into a mystery bag.
I am an Elder Millennial. I live with my Boomer parents. One of these parents, Fancy Nancy, has a progressive illness for which I provide various care and assistance tasks as part of my boarding arrangement. It’s a mutually beneficial situation: Fancy Nancy has companionship, and errand helper, a cute dogfriend; I have a place to live without rent, I slowed down my life, I’m near family again; my dad can keep farming without overworrying about my mom.
Sure, there is an interesting dynamic when one is in their late-30s and moves back to their childhood home, back to their small hometown, back in with their parents. We’re all adults, and it’s different than when I was here as a teenager!
One of the ongoing projects is helping my mom go through closets and storage rooms. This is a large house, and my parents have been married for nearly 40 years. Stuff accumulates. I lived in my own home for 11 years, purged it regularly, and I still couldn’t believe how much crap I had gathered! I’ve been back over 18 months now, and we’ve made quite a bit of progress. Still, we are finding things long forgotten—the sad, the amusing, the perplexing. Occasionally the truly asinine.
Here for your edification is the first installment of Things We Found While Cleaning:
embossed napkins from my parents’ wedding (1983)
a lock of hair from my first haircut (1990)
my engagement photo (2008); I’m divorced. Mom asked if I still wanted it.
a Weeble named Karen, I shit you not (probably the 80s, when my mom took my brother to Disneyland for the first time)
a peek-a-boo bunny lullaby toy (1985). This was mine when I was a baby. I had no idea this was still somewhere in the house.
image description: a white hand holding a plastic, pastel pink bunny. a pull string at the bottom activates the hands, eyes, and ears of the bunny to play peek-a-boo. This is a vintage item from Elle’s infancy in the mid-80s.
image description: a Weeble toy from the 70s-80s era, which is basically a bottom-heavy eggshaped plastic toy with a person illustration on it. This particular weeble also has Mickey Mouse ears at the top, and the name KAREN written in red letters across a white shirt.
