“You’ll be living in the weeds for a long time.”

I am grateful for my Auntie Beth, my mother’s sister.

Auntie Beth emigrated to Canada from Scotland after we did. I am not sure how long after, but I think it was only a few years. She has been a constant presence for as long as I can remember, except for the time when some combination of she and her husband had a falling out with some combination of my parents. That was a few years ago and lasted a while.

   I realized in the last couple years not only how fortunate I was to have her as my Auntie growing up, but in particular how my parents did not teach us to be grateful for all her love and generosity. We are not her children but she treats us like we are. I wrote her a card not that long ago, in order to tell her how thankful I am to have her in my life.

Recently my Auntie Beth helped me move into my apartment. My brothers Henry & Thomas and my sister Beth found the apartment for me. They looked at lots of places while I was in shock and then presented me with a handful from which to choose.

In the end I chose a landlord as much as an apartment. It was down to two choices. The first had two great amenities, a dishwasher and a microwave. I was so overwhelmed at the time I was making the decision that those two things seemed like the holy grail to me and not choosing them felt like I was forfeiting a gift. The apartment was in an old building that was being renovated. I really liked the landlord but the apartment was on a very busy road in an area that will be under massive construction for years to come. The second alternative was older, with a smaller kitchen, no treats of a microwave or dishwasher, but on a quieter main road and had I thought an equally cool landlord. Cool meaning someone that will help you when something goes wrong with the apartment. So I chose the latter and my Auntie Beth along with Thomas, Beth and Thomas’s wife Susan helped me clean, paint and move in.

The apartment was very dirty. The previous tenant was a nurse. I am a bit of a germ freak, not in the can’t accept that there are bacteria crawling all over me sense, but in the freaked out about public health hazards (people) who do not wash their freaking hands. A nurse with a dirty apartment freaks me out a bit. Yet, at the same time, I can forgive the nurse, because her job, if done well, involves giving all day long to people who are ill and therefore needy, so I can imagine that cleaning is not high on a nurse’s list after giving to everyone else all day.

 So far we have painted my bedroom green. I have wanted a green room for along time, but have been afraid of my choice being too green, whatever that means. It looks good I think, though the colour is more muddy than on the paint chip. Paint chips are hard eh?

Next we will paint the living area, but I have to unpack and purge what we have already moved in, because I have more stuff in storage yet to come. I am hoping to paint it red. Something warm and happy, but all the reds on paint chips just aren’t right to me. I see them in magazines and they look lovely but I never seem to be able to find the paint name of the really cool red in the magazine.

My name is Elina and I am a member of pack-rat’s anonymous. It is hard being a pack rat. Other than the moments when you are going through your stuff and ouwing and ahhing at the memories, your stuff is mostly just taking up lots of real estate. I am not aware of any of the psychological reasons for being pack rat but for me it is having a sentimental heart. Everything has a memory attach to it and being sentimental I cannot throw it out. I also do not like to waste things, so I keep it because one day I will want it. I am jealous of non pack rats like my sister Beth and brother Henry. They seem to have no sentimental attachment to anything as far as I can see. Thomas on the other hand is a pack rat as well. He understands.

Moving is overwhelming. Yes you will likely read that word a great deal, at least for now. Moving from a larger place to a smaller place when you are a pack rat is well ?!?!?!. So I am going through everything as I unpack it and trying to keep less and pass stuff on.

In the midst of the first  unpack on moving day, with Auntie Beth, Thomas, Beth and Susan helping, my Uncle Campbell telephoned to speak to his wife. My Auntie Beth got on the line and calmly repeated, “I think we will be a while”. I broke out laughing and then so did everyone else. It was quite the understatement.

But a while…a long while…or not, Auntie Beth worked all day that day to give me a place to sleep in that night and when I explained the longer term plan of unpacking and purging, she said, empathetically, “Oh you will be living in the weeds for a long time”.

Back to the weeds I go.

Elina Grace Edwin