PACKING BOXES

To get ready for the court date, I needed to pack up all Tracy's belongings so she could come collect them.  Once the temporary restraining order was granted, I had three weeks before I had to go back to court to request a permanent restraining order.  Once the permanent restraining order is granted, Tracy could arrange to come get her belongings.

I wanted to be ready for when she wanted to come pick up her stuff and I didn't want to live in a house staring at her belongings for a month.  So, I hired someone to come and help me pack up her belongings.  I told Sally, the girl I hired to help me pack, that this was going to be a tough job.  Tough because Tracy had A LOT of stuff but also it would be hard on me emotionally.  Not because the break up was hard because breaking up was not hard for me.  It was going to be hard because the process was going to make me angry and frustrated.

We started in the garage because despite the years of me asking Tracy to go through the boxes in the garage, she never did.  The boxes were full of crap.  Just a lot of junk.  A bag of keys, a bag of rocks, boxes and bags of toys (she has no kids), containers of art supplies (some never opened or used), boxes of clothes, and tons of crap.  It was so sad it was funny.  She was a hoarder and it was so much worse than I was aware.  Then we moved indoors.  She had tons of shoes and ties and sweaters and audio books and jackets.  It was overwhelming.  Then we moved upstairs and there were books and a whole box of National Geographics.  She had no kitchen stuff and no furniture.  Even so there were 80 boxes.  Eighty Boxes!  It takes up half my garage and part of my dining room.  It took the two of us two days working 8 hours a day.  We had to pack the boxes and inventory and photograph the contents.  Exhausting!

Only once did I get really upset. That was when I found a bag stuffed in the back of the cabinet in the bathroom.  It had Tracy's medicine unopened still in the pharmacy bags.  I was frustrated that she didn't take it but also frustrated that she didn't tell me and let me keep buying the medicine at full price and stuffing it under the sink.  Since she had not met her deductible, I had to pay the full price.  I can think of better things to use that money for that buying medicine she was not going to take but hide.

It felt good to box it all up and get it out of the house (almost!)

more to come...