Basement Therapy

If one day you decide you want to make homemade ice cream and you head down into the basement to get the ice cream maker, but instead you find one of those interventionists from Hoarders, you might have a problem. That was not exactly my experience on a recent trek downstairs, but it was close—as close as it felt in my basement, which was stacked high with boxes and didn’t allow for walking unless I got a tetanus shot first.

The basement had been bugging me since we started using it as a catch-all for our stuff during a kitchen remodel. This is normal. This is okay. The basement understands. It’s been a catch-all for humans for a century. But I have a brain that doesn’t like clutter, and since our catch-all had long ago crossed the line into “lob it down there and then run away,” I needed to be brave.

So I did the next logical thing and avoided it for months.

It is an overwhelming time in our household right now. My husband was part of downsizing at his job, which means he was “let go.” This also means he felt like a bit of rubbish “let go” from a precipice.  He had worked at the company for more than sixteen years. It was a grief that surprised us both.

When I found out about the job loss, all I wanted to do was panic and cry a lot, but I also had to do things like “comfort my husband” and “encourage him for the future.” I’m using air quotes here because panicking and crying leave little room for being a supportive wife.

I was facing a pile of overwhelm. Uncertainty and fear loomed over me like sticky cobwebs that I knew I needed to deal with, but instead I mainly ducked around them and felt creeped out. What if we have to move? What about our sons? How could we leave our sweet little Swedish town? How do I find another running route where there are no barkie dogs? How do I quit my beloved job at the library? How can I make new friends? I don’t know how I found the ones I have now—who stick by me even though I am weird.

Two years from now, our firstborn will be going to college. I just found out that he wants to be a lawyer or a doctor —“One of the two,” he tells me. This is great. This is fine. Of course it is. But also, “What?!” The stress makes my stomach hurt.

I started baking at my anxiety, because baking makes my brain turn off. Long ago I found an old Betty Crocker cookbook in—you guessed it—the basement when it was a nicer place. This week’s stress-dessert was angel food cake, and it deserved homemade strawberry ice cream. That’s how I ended up facing a wall of boxes and debris that was disturbing in its height and dust.

I knew I could no longer live like this. I longed for a tiny portion of control, and if that meant I would have to deal with spiders and moldy boxes, so be it.

I started small by “listing” myself into the task, a slow, “stick your toe into the pool” approach that ended up looking like this:

1. Gather supplies.
2. Start at north end.
3. Stare at boxes until depressed.
4. Exit the house and drive away.