My basement flooded last weekend. This has been a source of existential crisis for me in the past. My vaunted book collection got soaked at Seaforth Way back in the 1990's. Maybe not my first inkling that you can't take it with you but also sadness because that collection brought me joy.
When I moved into a home in 2009, it was very important that my basement stay dry. Tellingly, I was a little less obsessed with my collections. I was more engaged in life and less in my daydreams. Parenting and career put paid to that. I bought the sump pump back up. I usually made sure things were off the floor. I had a nice studio room but my friends never came over to play with me. This always made me sad.
Admittedly, I was a little overwhelmed as things I had been storing at my mom's and various friends homes came home to roost. I never had the time to alphabetize and organize as I had in the past. It was a repeat of previous relationships, where the lady of the house convinced me to nest with them and then stuck my stuff under the ground. My kids, who must have inherited the collecting and impulsive spending gene contributed. The older kids were part-timers in my unhappy home, so they didn't have a lot of investment in keeping things in line.
If you are a fan of dream interpretation, you might know that the basement has some significance. My old friend, Lucian Parker used to say it represented latent or repressed sexuality. How many times have teenagers made out in basements? I famously came in my pants one fall every weekend while managing to keep my feet on the floor!! So maybe it represents unrealized dreams. I often have the nightmare where I have an old apartment that I forgot about and left many possessions still there( in the basement). I always worry about how will I have the time to move this stuff? What have I lost that was important?
Flash forward to 2015. Going thru a nasty divorce/custody battle, I start looking for things to sell and it turns out I have TONS! Over the next two years, I'll get demoted, lose my mother, almost lose my house, definitely lose my mind from time to time, find a great new career and come out of it on top professionally and legally.
I'm very strong in the moment. Doing the next right thing comes very naturally to me. This strength, developed from a lifetime of attention deficit disorder has been my survival mechanism but also leads to undealt with stuff. Emotionally and materially. A carload of professional effects? Look thru it later. Mom's house has to be empty in 30 days? I'll drag it into MY house and see what I can use. Can't find that thingamabob you need? Better buy another.
So back to the current situation. The great flood came (bad sump pump). All the shit (literally and figuratively) is in the middle of the basement floor. I pray to have the strength to go thru it this time. Maybe that's the key to my future satisfaction. Time for the reckoning of the Teenage Dream.