Four years ago, I did my best to squeeze my five-bedroom-four-bathroom-cavernous-great-room life into a townhouse, one suburb over. As my nest had gradually emptied -- I was down to only one un-launched child and a blind dog -- I felt dwarfed by all the unoccupied space.
Dwarfed, and, at the same time, claustrophobic and crammed in, the way I used to feel when I was much younger and I would lie down on the bed to stuff myself into a pair of tight designer jeans, back in the dark ages of non-stretchy denim. It was hard to breathe; the walls seemed to close in around all the excess air.
I struggled to keep only what I needed, get rid of the rest. It was easiest to let go of furniture, the post-crib bedrooms that had made me realize how fast my children would grow, though it never occurred to me that they would actually leave. The boxes filled with art projects and report cards and the crudely illustrated manuscripts of youthful, unfettered imaginations were tougher; I spent hours traveling through time, trying to select only the best samples to keep for posterity. I gave away more "stuff" than most people acquire, and I took comfort in knowing that somebody whose life had been less bountiful -- at least materially -- than mine would enjoy and appreciate that which, to me, had often been superfluous.
My daughter and I eventually settled in to our new space, organizing what we had held onto to create a home, for us and the dog. It was far more difficult for her than it was for me. The large suburban house had been the only house she ever knew; her friends would have to drive what seemed to be a great distance (a few miles) to see her. Unlike me, she was nowhere near ready to shed the excess; she was too young to feel overwhelmed by clutter. For her, as they were for me, memories may have been a double edged sword, but her memories were more anchor than constraint
I had been determined to avoid the need for extra storage. I would take only what would fit. And I succeeded, except for the ping pong table. My father had bought it for my kids when we first moved to the suburbs. Whether they played or not, it made sense. The wide open spaces of suburban life cried out to be filled. And they enjoyed the ping pong table for a few years, before it became invisible under piles of stuff. By the time of the move, I had almost forgotten it was there.
Still, I couldn't part with the ping pong table, even though it had done nothing but gather dust -- and piles of crap -- for a long time. It captured so much for me: my growing family, the life we built, my father's love. He was either already or soon to be on borrowed time (I can't remember) when he bought that ping pong table, and it was an outsized, tangible version of his legacy. To get rid of the ping pong table would be like cutting myself off at the knees, again, the way I felt when he died. He didn't get to watch his grandchildren grow up, become the adults they are today, people who would make him so proud. But, in the relatively short time he had with them, he gave them so much more than the ping pong table, the stuff you can't really see but that I sense all the time -- in their goodness, their smiles, their generosity.
It's time to retrieve the ping pong table from my old neighbor's basement. He's moving on now too. It was easy enough to fold it up and wheel it around the corner to his house, four years ago. It's a little more complicated now, but I'll manage. My father's been gone for a long time, now, but, no matter where life takes me, he still occupies a fair share of space.
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