The (Figurative) Brochure on Ghosts in the Garage: Unpacking the Past While Clearing for the Present
OK, now remember, I’m just one of the cleaning disabled. This is not my strongest talent, by far. It’s more like my Achilles Heel.
Today I want to talk to you about my garage. Ghosts in my garage? Not really ghosts, but let me explain.
Now I’ve talked to you about our house. What’s inside of it. All the stuff from not only my parents, but my grandparents as well. And stuff from Bill’s mom too. Then I’ve talked to you about our yard. The garden. The years of neglect that I’ve had to contend with and hopefully I’ve made some progress on it, although sometimes I feel like there’s no progress at all. I admit, I just feel defeated sometimes when I look at it all. And then there is the constant renewal of stuff to do. Pulling weeds. Always weeds, and not just a few weeds. Really healthy big weeds. I know, there are ways to stop weeds before they get that big, but some of those ways command extra work too. And then the leaves. The two huge oak trees just on the other side of the back fence. Not only leaves, but all the acorns too. I’ve said it before. Why are they protected? They are very prolific. We’ve often had several little oaks trees sprouting up all over. One year, I think there were about 40 of them. Do they really need to be protected?
Recently when we took down all the Halloween decorations, I figured that it was time to reorganize the garage. Just a bit. Last year, my knees were starting to really kill me, so although we decorated for both Halloween and Christmas, it was minimal for both. We didn’t put out all the things that we have. So I wanted to put back the Halloween stuff and pull out the Christmas stuff. And now don’t forget, when we moved our stuff over here and finally and permanently moved here, we had the movers put some of the stuff into the garage. The rest is sadly under a tarp in the backyard. Translation? Bring the trash bin over. Soggy, filled with spiders, or just smelling like mold. We’ve chipped away at it, but it’s still I’m embarrassed to say, there. A constant reminder of a task I don’t want to do.
Now back to the garage. The other day I went out there deciding I would DO something. Well, I did do something. I did find some of the Christmas lights way in the back and got some of the Halloween stuff back there in a surprising blank spot. There aren’t many blank spots in our garage. And then I took a shot at cleaning off a shelf just inside the door. I tried to start by purging? Or just reorganizing. But I ended up just be befuddled by the whole thing. Befuddled. What a great word. It describes me, especially in this circumstance.
I found an old set of keys. Keys to what I wonder? There’s a small Marlboro logo attached to the key chain. My dad hadn’t smoked since I was maybe six years old? Then I found what was left of an old saucepan. The handle had come off. What was in there? Rusty nails. A screwdriver with a broken handle. A stray golf ball. A door handle from a car. Which car? An old car! And some other things I can’t really identify.
This is about the time I sat down, sort of frustrated, and took photos of both things for you so I can post on social media. Do I keep the keys? Maybe I’ll find out what they go to? I know there’s an old cookie tin – and let me tell you it’s a large cookie tin – of old keys in the house already. Somebody got the idea to take the empty cookie tin and put keys in it that they found around the house and it's actually full. Full of keys that no one uses or needs. Maybe I should think about an art project using them, except I don’t really do art projects. Well, I digress.
Now the broken handle screwdriver? We do have a lot of screwdrivers here, I admit, but what if this is a different size? And a stray golf ball. That’s funny since I was telling Bill there are probably about 40 stray golf balls on our property, if you put them together. Some in the yard from what I can only guess was a broken box and the rest in the garage. I asked him to Google what to do with old golf balls, and he asked me how many we have. He said he found a link that if we have like 15,000 there was someone who would come pick them up. I’m not sure what to think about that, or what 15,000 golf balls would even look like, but no, we don’t have THAT many. Can you imagine? And what would anyone do with 15,000 golf balls anyway? I know, they’d hit them, right?
Now rusty nails. Are those trash, or recyclable? This is where a new app for my phone comes in handy. Sort of. It’s called Recycle Coach. I don’t know if it’s available everywhere yet, but it reminds me when trash day is, which I mean, if I need a reminder about when trash day is, I’m kind of in trouble. But it also has search capacity. So I can search for “nails” and it tells me that if I’m not recycling or reusing them to put them in the trash. But does that mean that as metal they’re recyclable? I’m still confused. And yes, I’m willing to reuse them, but since they’re rusty, should I? You can see I have a lot of questions. And they’re just nails.
And then I have about 200 things I can take to the hazmat collection place. Paint. There are a lot of old paint cans in the garage. I also discovered that some of the paint stores actually accept old paint back through a program called PaintCare, but it’s again not available in every state. I’ll put the website in the show notes.
I also found a box of cleaning supplies I believe it’s so old that my parents and I used to clean either one of my grandparents’ houses. Now that’s old stuff. There were several boxes of the cleaner TSP in there in various stages of being filled. Does that stuff stay viable? I wondered, so I looked it up. Turns out it contains phosphates, which is probably what stands for the P, and these substances are now illegal to dishwashing and laundry detergents in most areas of the United States. Uh oh I told myself. Now the Internet says to wear gloves, safety goggles and take other precautions when using this product. Like don’t hose it down the driveway or use a tarp. I remember cleaning a lot of things with TSP as a teenager. I’m guessing this will go to the hazmat collection too. I don’t like to use things like this anymore even though it’s sold at my local Home Depot. So I’m guessing it’s not illegal in my area. I don’t know. Then there’s a pair of rubber gloves. I haven’t touched those yet but I’m thinking when I pick those up they might just turn to dust as a lot of things in the garage have done already. And there’s a bottle of vinegar. Now I don’t know what the shelf life of vinegar is, but I guess even back then we were trying to clean holistically?
I was going to start to throw things out but I realized I didn’t have enough supplies or backup. I didn’t have a trash can handy, or trash bags, or even boxes to sort things out, and then if I spread stuff out on the driveway, because I usually need space to do stuff like this. I’d have to drag all the stuff back into the garage later. The dog might get into it or I, you know, the trash cans are in the front yard. So I'd have to, it's so confusing.
OK, now remember, I’m just one of the cleaning disabled. This is not my strongest talent, by far. It’s more like my Achilles Heel. I get too bogged down in looking at things, and letting things go. I need a partner to confirm to me it’s okay to throw something out. And of course I donate whenever possible. I like to reuse, recycle, repurpose. I just get so overwhelmed looking at any stack or corner or room or garage or house. I don’t know what to do. I have a lot of talents. This isn’t one of them. But I always give myself the pep talk. I tell myself that I can do it. I can go in there and start tossing, and making progress, and just DO IT. But then I get sidetracked early on, and it all goes south. And this was kind of a family failing. My mom didn't have this ability either. She just, she liked to hold on to things. And I, I think that that's probably where I get it.
At least a couple of years before my dad passed away, my parents hired a professional organizer who spent many months with them. She came over every week and did small projects and then did one big cleanup. She’s one of these pros who was even on the TV show, “Hoarders” about people who really have a problem. Not that we didn’t have a problem. I don't have a problem. What is the defining line of where you have a problem? Anyway, I’m talking about people who have so much stuff in their house that you can’t see the floors. You can’t touch the floors. You walk around the house and you have to bend your head to get through the doorway because there's so much stuff. Anyway, she never got out to the garage unfortunately. Or my parents didn’t want her to get out there. I’m not sure.
You’ll be glad to know that my childhood tricycle is hanging on the wall, along with my Radio Flyer red wagon. Gosh, I loved both of those so much. Was I even that small, ever? Going further back, there’s a shelf that has a crib or playpen kind of thing that might have been mine. It was definitely something that my parents let me play with in my room. I put my dolls and stuffed animals in it. I’m just not sure if I ever was actually IN this contraption as a baby. It’s very cute. It has painted on the side. I think it has cute little animals or something.
It makes me think about the last time my dad used all these things. The rusty nails. The golf balls. The saw. The level that now doesn’t have any fluid in it anymore, so it’s just a glorified piece of wood. The keys? The paint. Dad never liked doing things around the house, not unless he had to. He was very competent, at fixing things. He just didn't like doing it, unless it was something of an emergency. He liked to relax, and do the things he wanted to do. But he definitely touched all of these things. Sometimes when I think about that, it makes it harder for me to clean it all out. It makes it harder to move on. It’s a process, right? But it makes me think about time, and how time goes by, and how when we leave this earth, we leave the things behind that we worked on. And it makes me think I should get better about leaving things in a good organized manner every time I touch something.
Well, lofty thoughts, right? It goes back to my mantra, my tag line, “every day is a gift.” Because every day really IS a gift. Now I have to go back to the garage and try to accomplish something today. I’ll try to take Bill with me as my organizing coach. When he feels like it, he’s a lot better at this stuff than I am. It seems to run in his family.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Next week we’ll tackle another topic together. I hope you’ll join me.