Inheritance

     I listened as he spoke. The images he painted in words brought my mother to  mind, yet he was speaking of me. "I know you want to do grand things," he said carefully, "but you don't have to do them all in one heroic effort or not do them." He was succinctly describing a habit that I'd inherited from my mother. Only, like Nora Ephron advised the Wellesley graduates of 1996, I liked to believe myself to be own Heroine, and some how I'd managed to do so most of my adult life. Yet I knew he was right. I needed to break down my grand goals into small manageable boxes and as Nike so adeptly sells, "Just do it." Our family has been trying to get my Mother to Just Do things for years; first finish her degree and, second, downsize her home(s).

     My grand goals;  first, to edit out all of the wasband's and children's accumulated stuff so that I can sell my house and decant to a smaller home or cohabitate with another adult with children, and second, to write a memoir (although lately I've been flirting with fiction first, to tune my chops, and then produce a creative nonfiction memoir later).

      My mother has lived in the same house, with two different husbands, and 45 years of accumulated stuff. The only formal purging was after my stepfather left 29 years ago. I'm now at year 14 in my house and about to enter the fifth year since I kicked the wasband out. My mother and second stepfather have shared her/their house for nearly 25 years at present.

      I found my friends words to be a reckoning. I was following too closely in my mother's footsteps and knew action needed to be taken. Most of my adult life I was childless and moved often enough to edit my few material possessions. I'd reached a tipping point and needed to address it at home. In the life of the mind, I've fitfully (as my faithful readers here know) written snippets that I've hoped to string together into a book length work. Much like my mother's inability to move, due to conditions never being just right due to over-seeing 12 children between them, nor finishing her degree, although she's surely taken enough credits in college and through Harvard Extension to do so. They always put everyone first at the expense of themselves. So thoughtful and reflective that they spin in circles.

     My father on the other hand is an action-solution guy. We have a running joke that every 7-10 years my father and stepmother will move; and that is exactly what happens. It's always to the best  or  most perfect location, size and layout for their needs. In their 70's they've started to downsize. The huge house with lots of land became a townhouse in the city. Now the town house has turned to an efficient one bedroom apartment on the 4th floor. The second home went from being an Acorn house with three bedrooms on the sea; to a self designed one bedroom w/bunkhouse in a seaside town. They are spending half their time on the single floor house in the coastal town by my brother, and the other half in the city walk-up near my sister, as it suits them now. They decide as a equal unit what they want to do next, plan it and execute it. Then they tell the four adult children, sometimes in process and other times after the fact.

     I'm a goal setter and reflective person like my father. I've been good at doing that most of my life, when I was the only one I was responsible for in a given decision. But since being a married person and then a single mother of two, my decisiveness on the home front was weakened. Other than keeping the house for my kids to finish school and for me to keep the capitol intact for my self down the line. Yet I find the accumulation of stuff and the lack of an immediate plan for my next step to have been weighing me down psychologically. And it's taken away the energy required to face the fear of putting my thoughts into words every day, in any meaningful way. (Plus I was wanting to have my private thoughts be private for the first year of my relationship with my man friend. This has been a real exercise in holding on to a renewed confidence, not being impulsive, nor quick to judge (cut bait or go whole hog). So I've been in a reflective spin-cycle like my Mother for a few years now.

     But as we rode into Boston, on the way to what would become a wonderful evening of company and a concert, I found that his words could just as easily have been about my mother as myself. And when I said as much, he said, "I don't know her, I know you and I want to help." It's nice to become known. It's nice to trust asking for help, receiving it and realizing what a gift that can be if you can listen. I wish my Mom would listen and act; but I'm only her daughter, so now I will listen, reflect and act to break the chain for my son and daughter.