Guisewite - Fifty things that arent my fault: essays from the grown-up years

Im standing in the doorway of my closet, on the threshold of What Happens Next, clutching my last shred of personal power: a great big black trash bag into which I want to dump all my clothes.

Nothing fits.

I dont mean Ha-ha, nothing fits. I mean nothing fits. This is worse than the hot pink bikini that destroyed my twenties in a fluorescent bulb-lit dressing room in a Royal Oak, Michigan, mall. Worse than the blue jeans that broke my heart in my thirties in a charming Santa Barbara denim shop stacked to the hand-hewn rafters with jeans for every female body in the universe except mine. Worse than the go-everywhere black dress upon which I spent a car payment in my forties that never went anywhere because the only time I ever got it zipped was five minutes before handing my Visa card to the hip L.A. salesperson who told me how hot I looked in it.

This is worse than all that. This is my whole life not fitting. My days are too short, my lists are too long. People arent where theyre supposed to be. Everythings changing without my permission. Children are moving away, friends moving on, loved ones leaving the earth, muscles and skin tone not even pausing to wave farewell before deserting meand after all Ive done for them. Just when I think I cant possibly stand one more goodbye, something or someone I thought would be here forever isnt.

Everyone I know is in some version of a great big life shift. Right in the middle of people and things that are changing and disappearing way too fast. An unrequested rearrangement of everything in our personal worldsas if there isnt enough that feels out of our control right now in the big world. Its unsettling and unnerving. And scary. Impossible to be everything to everyone, to reconcile all thats different, and to keep track of ourselves along that way.

I grip the trash bag. I have an overwhelming, exhilarating need to get rid of things before any more leave on their own.

I stopped my lifes work of drawing a comic strip after thirty-four years when the first rumbles of big change in my own life made it impossible for me to hold the pen. My daughter was starting her senior year of high school and I panicked that her childhood was ending before Id had a chance to be a mom. I wanted, for once in my life, to get to be a full-time mom like the new stay-at-home superstar moms I read about in magazines and also, if Im completely honest, like the old-school housewife moms I watched on TV when I was growing up. I wanted to get to feel what it was like to make tomato soup in the middle of the day.

That same year, my parents were both approaching their nineties, and I also wanted, for once in my life, to get to be a full-time adult daughter like the patient, loving daughters I read about in books. Graciously, selflessly helping Mom and Dad glide into their twilight years.

None of this has gone as planned.

I became a full-time mom at the very moment my daughter decided to reject all input from anyone over age thirty.

I became a full-time daughter the moment my parents announced they would barricade the front door if I tried to bring in anyone or anything to assist them.

I got older, which I hadnt factored in, and became even more obnoxious and belligerent than my child or my parents, incapable of even committing to exercising five minutes a day.

I thought that when I quit my job, the pace of all the change would slow down. But it didnt. It sped up. Before I knew it, the year zoomed by, my daughter turned nineteen and moved to college, my parents turned ninety, and I turned into a bicoastal hoverer. Commuting between generations. Back and forth between Florida and California so often, I spend the first few minutes of each morning trying to guess which coast Im on before I open my eyes.

Which is why Im standing here right now. Trash bag held high. I can control nothing else, but I can control this. I will stuff life as I knew it into this bag and get rid of it. All of it.

The delusional clothes... the useless beauty products... the plastic food containers with no lids. I will move on to the file cabinets... the bathroom cupboard... the storage room. I will shred and dump! Delete! Declutter! I will be a role model of clarity. I will do it for my family. I will do it for me. Create a future with absolutely nothing hot pink and strappy holding me back.

I open the garbage bag to stuff in my first triumphant OUT!

I reach into the closet and pull out a frayed T-shirt I havent worn since 1982.

I study it in my hand.

I think how cute it would look paired with an oversize linen shirt, beaded belt, and suede ankle boots. I remember seeing a kicky messenger bag online somewhere with tassels the exact same shade of teal as the faded flower logo on the right sleeve.

I refold the shirt and lay it back on the shelf.

I close the garbage bag.

I march into the kitchen and sit at the table. So many thoughts are stacking up in my head. Big changes... little tassels... hanging on... letting go...

I open my laptop to start typing.

Before I can unload the closets, I have to get rid of some of these words.