Wednesday, March 17, 2010

If I were moving to Paris

I am moving into a tiny apartment from a slightly larger house. I am having a difficult time thinning out my possessions, clutter, and stacks of old papers. Yesterday, I nearly had a petite anxiety attack. Then, after hours of sorting, I had a thought, and it made me ‘get real’ about my situation. “If I were moving to Paris on Saturday, instead of just moving across town, what would I be taking with me?” I also received a nice little piece of advice for clearing out the clutter: “Would you buy it today?” If not, toss or donate it immediately.

That left me stunned for a few moments and with a new plan of attacking this daunting task of packing up my life and moving it forward. That is really what this is all about. Moving my life forward, from a tedious, dramatic, tumultuous, difficult, past few years toward a brighter, simpler, and quieter present and future. Leaving the past behind can be difficult because of the memories, both good and bad, that are attached to the things and the people who are left behind.

I have a few main areas of excessive accumulation…books, music and movies, papers, wine, clothes, and kitchen stuff. I also have more furniture than I may need.
Let me start with the furniture. I have some new pieces but mostly old, inherited or found pieces make up my collection. I have my two beautiful Borgese mirrored dressers. I have my antique writing desk and chair, a birthday gift from my mother. I have my over-stuffed chair and my antique loveseat. I have my new Japanese inspired armoire ( I traded a box of great wine for it!). I use my two black cabinets as a desk and tuck my file cabinet underneath. I have a French bistro set and my old, kitchen table with two rickety chairs I found. I have a black coffee table my friend Rick gave me but I painted it black, and three other little end tables. I have my dad’s old Navy chest filled with blankets. And then I have a baker’s rack and a butler both given to me by old acquaintances. I have several, wooden, folding bookracks….

That leads me to my books. I have hundreds of books. I have been avidly collecting books since I was a teen. Many are special, but many are simply out dated for who I am today. This is the area, more than any other, where I need to be brutally honest with myself. Books are heavy, and they take up a lot of space. I have way too many books. Can I part with the past? It was always my dream to have a library wall of interesting titles. I can still thin them out. Perhaps, I can keep one or two by category—past interests, and then keep the books pertaining to my current interests. That might not be a bad idea. Think about that for a few hours.

I thinned out my music and my movies and finally put each cd or dvd in a book, getting rid of all those bulky jewel cases. I now have four books of cd’s and three books of dvd’s. Not so bad. I’d actually like to get rid of some of that music. I rarely listen to most of it any more and with I Tunes, I can just get the songs I want. Did I mention that I still have my record collection-1000 albums and a tiny record player? I love them, but they are in my mother’s garage….

Clothes: what can I say? I have way too many clothes and the funny thing is, last summer I went through my clothes and reduced my wardrobe by half! Most of my clothes are business or business casual clothes, which for the last four years, I haven’t had the occasion to wear. With my current job, these clothes are finally out of the closet. But, why do I need six crisp white shirts and six crisp black shirts? I have five pairs of black, side-zip pants…but, not one is the perfect fit. I may just have to invest in a great tailor. I have countless tee shirts. I have weeded out the concert tee-shirts (former career) and gone to strictly solid coloured, ¾ sleeve, boat neck or scoop neck: mostly
black. I love skirts and dresses and I have a good collection that I wear. I have eight pairs of jeans. All fit well and look good. Two pairs of dark, two pairs of slightly faded, one white, one Diesel, one black skinny and one blue skinny. I have an excessive amount of coats…and shoes. I don’t even want to think about my coats and shoes!

My kitchen. I have lovely Le Cruset pans and a set of Farberware saucepans. I have cookie sheets, pie pans, and cake pans….I do bake on occasion. I have every utensil a girl should have. I have the appropriate dishes and glasses, silverware, and glass storage containers. What has to go is all the crazy Tupperware….ok, I have to stop thinking about it…it’s a bit overwhelming and it makes me want to drink more wine…I have become the occasional and temporary alcoholic…(stress related).

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Shutting out the world for an hour..Part Two

I found her in a little lot near the end of a day driving around with my dad, looking at car after car. Beautiful, cobalt blue, pretty little racing stripes, clean as a whistle, and oh so sexy. She is the exact car I’d been wanting for eight, long years. Finally, with my other car in a totaled mess, now was the time for me to take the plunge and buy my first car payment car. It took four days, but I was finally approved and got to take her home with me on a Monday afternoon. She was perfect.

Friday evening I drove up the mountain to Idaho Springs to celebrate my nephew’s fourth birthday. My friend and I met my brother and his friend in town for a cocktail at a seedy little bar my brother recommended. He cleverly weaseled my keys away from me and announced he would be driving my car to his house, up the canyon…I protested, but realized, he’d do it anyway and I may as well take the path of least resistance. History warned me against fighting him off. If he was going to drive my car, I was going to ride with him…no, I didn’t trust him. Never have….history is telling. My intuition that moment was right. He took off up the winding and icy road toward his house, shifting roughly and hauling ass. I was terrified and asked him to slow it down. He was passing cars and taking the sharpest curves at 70 to 80 miles per hour. He screeched at me to relax, claiming that the car was made to be driven hard like that. As he pulled into his snow packed drive, I cringed. Parked on the other side were my uncle Dennis’ Jeep and my dad’s truck. My brother pulled up hard on the parking brake to spin the car around and as he did it glided smoothly, rear end first, directly into the Jeep. He wrecked my car, of course he did. I was furious! He got out of my car, smiling that sheepish smile and laughing. He said he would take care of it and said he was sorry.
I couldn’t help being angry and sorry is not a simple band-aid.

I went into the house visibly upset and my mom, dad, Dennis, and my brother’s wife all asked what was wrong. I told them, and then Josh came in…he got very angry that I was still angry and asked me to come outside and talk to him. We walked to his entry way and he snapped, screaming at me, and then he physically picked me up and threw me out his door. I was screaming and fighting him off. I was terrified of him; for my safety. I made my way past him and back into the house where everyone else was standing in awe. My brother followed, spewing his venomous anger at me, ranting about things that happened 25 years ago….and not even getting the details correct. He belittled me, humiliated me, physically and verbally abused me, until finally, he said if I didn’t leave he’d call the cops on me. I kept my cool throughout the entire event and invited him to call the cops. Then I went upstairs to apologize to his kids, and his friend’s kids. I apologized to everyone else for the fact that my nephew’s birthday was ruined. I tried to leave. He followed me to my car, prying the door open, and continued to scream at me. At the end of his rant, he evicted me from my home, which I rented from him…typical, and expected.

Within days I discovered that my grandmother was dying of cancer, which was completely unexpected. She was always vibrant, stubborn, strong, and feisty. How could this be happening? I was taken completely off guard. My dad was shattered. The next day we realized that she was much worse off than expected. We left the next morning for a long drive from Denver to McGregor, Iowa. We hit the worst possible weather conditions but we finally made it. We each got a few precious moments with her and made our peace. That night she fell asleep and she never regained consciousness. She died a few days later. I am still in shock by the surrealness of it all.

And now, just a few short weaks later, I am packing up my life to move. Not my choice, and terrible timing. It is amazing how much stuff I have to sort out, thin out, and pack up. I am looking toward the future and I am looking forward to living somewhere new and fresh. I need a clean break and a fresh start. I need a new perspective. I need to let the drama of the past few months slip away. I need to cultivate my secret garden, my own life, my own home, and learn to be myself again. I feel somehow lost, as if I have forgotten who I am and what is important to the true me. I will discover those important things over the next few months, living on my own, with my dog and my cat, in peace and in quite. Solitude.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Shutting out the world for an hour..Part One

Sometimes it takes everything I have to make it through the day. The last two months have been particularly challenging for me. I finished the bulk of college in December and am only taking two classes online this semester. Business Ethics and Entrepreneurship. Both are interesting but I am having difficulty finding the time and inspiration to do the work involved. Each class requires a half an hour on line each day at minimum. There are texts to read and papers to write. It doesn’t sound like a lot until it is combined with the rest of my schedule.

Knowing I would be graduating in May, I began looking for a job in November. I figured that in this recession and in my luxury goods field, that it would take me months to even get an interview. Well, I had six companies interested in the first week of my search. I was flattered and surprised. I quickly settled on three companies and began the in-depth interview process with each. Each company made me an offer. I carefully selected the best company for my current circumstances. A woman with whom I had wanted to work with for a long time recruited me. She gave me the difficult Boulder territory and I started with them on January 4th. That same day, she told me she was retiring at the end of the month. She knew it when she hired me but really wanted me on the team anyway. I was secretly devastated and may not have taken the job had I known. I wondered if I made a mistake. To top it off, the company had not found her replacement. To further complicate matters, the man I was replacing was promoted to DM in July so the territory was largely ignored for six months. This man was to take on the responsibilities of the woman who was leaving, train me, and do his own job. Poor guy. The downside is that my training was lack luster. I was hoping I had not been set up for failure.

In my fourth week of employment, I was required to give a “State of my territory” presentation to a panel comprised of the VP’s and CEO’s of my company. Each member of my six-man team were required to present. My presentation had nothing to do with me…as I was reporting on the previous year. (It had everything to do with me and how I would repair the broken territory.) The DM, who was responsible for that territory, did very little to assist me in the creation of the presentation. I actually had to call on the woman who hired me to help me find the information I needed. This was a source of extreme tension between the DM and myself. He basically dumped his failures in my lap. In the end, the presentation was a success, the panel was compassionate but firm, and I was able to convince them that I will do everything in my power to turn the territory around. I realized through my research that the territory is in much worse shape than had been revealed to me. Great.

I was having dinner in front of the tv after a very long day at the end of January when I heard the loudest crash and then screaming coming from the street outside my house. My roommate ran out and I followed, cell phone in hand. What I saw in the street shocked and amazed me. My Ford Explorer was attached to a Lincoln towncar by the grill and it had been pushed fifty feet down the block into yet another car. The driver of the towncar was desperately trying to free his car. People were in the street and my roommate was pounding on the driver’s side window trying to get the man to stop. He finally stopped and then he took off running. My roommate chased him down and the man along with his passenger and brother were all arrested. He got a DUI among the other charges. He had just been released from jail two days prior with yet another DUI.
The fire department and nine cops showed up. They were amazed at the sight of the wreckage. The man had wrecked into my roommates car, my car, and then used my car to wreck into yet another car. All of the cars were totaled.

This boded particularly well for me as I am required to drive to Boulder everyday for work carrying boxes of wine. Because of this requirement, I had just added full coverage insurance to my car when I accepted my new job. In fact, I just paid the bill a few days before the accident….

To my horror, the insurance company informed me that they had no record of the upgrade but had processed my ‘early payment.’ I had the bill in my hand and they said the burden of proof was on me. I am not in the habit of recording my telephone conversations so, obviously, I had no proof, and no full coverage. My car was a total loss unless I could track down the insurance for the towncar. Thankfully, the loser had a cheap policy and I would be getting some money, very little, but at least I got something.

As it goes, I am required to have a car for my new job. I drive, on average, 80 miles a day. I don’t really like driving and don’t really like cars but I have always wanted a Mini Cooper. My dad took me looking the day after my car was totaled. We had been looking at Mini’s before-it is something fun we do together. We looked at a few dealers and then as luck would have it, my dad found the perfect car in the web. But…more about that later…