Author: A Broken Villager

This last week has been intense and chaotic. A bit of a backstory is needed to understand just how insane this last week was. I was raised in a chaotic house. Both my parents were hoarders and only cleaned if we had company over, and then it was panic and stuff things out of sight. So I was not raised with the best role models, shall we say. I was also raised in poverty, and I always needed what we didn’t have, or what we did have was shabby and broken. We never had enough of what we needed, but always too much of the crap we didn’t need. 

I was determined to have a different life for my kids. I work hard to break generational curses, to show them they are valued and important. To hear their feelings and honour their emotional needs. But along with trying very hard to meet their social and emotional needs, I also want to make sure they never want for anything… and I went too far. Way too far. I made sure they had every toy they needed or wanted; they had all the art supplies, all the crafts, the costumes, backup toys. I made sure I had things in storage in case something broke. 

I made sure that in the house, I had everything else. I had a backup vacuum, and I had so much Tupperware that I was always playing find the right lid. They had so many clothes that I always had a mountain of laundry that I could never catch up. They had clothes they would outgrow waiting for them to be cleaned. I had 3 streaming services, but kept a mountain of DVDs. I had every book they had ever been given, even though they had outgrown many of them. To make things worse, I have ADHD and had the habit of buying things, putting them up, forgetting them, and buying them again.

I could continue, but I’m sure you get the point. I lived a life of deprivation and went overboard on the next generation. So, here is where it is chaotic: my sisters, all four of them, descended on my apartment, determined and motivated to help me with my children and their lives. So they went through every inch, every cardboard box and bag of a random mix of things. Every basket, every drawer, every Rubbermaid box, every single inch of my apartment. I had probably a dozen garbage bags of things to donate by the end. They went and sorted everything, organized everything. Remember that ADHD problem of buying and forgetting? By the end, they found close to 20 charger cords, enough hair accessories to fill half a bucket. Half a bucket of gloves, enough socks to clothe an entire classroom of kids, I could go on and on… and on.

So here is my point in making this blog post: to share a few things. One: financially, I was (and still am) a hot mess. And having a complete inventory of everything I own is going to make a huge difference going forward. Having enough room to rotate toys instead of buying more. Having a clean, not cluttered kitchen is already leading to more cooking and less takeout. Having the ability to know where all my things are means less spending and more money to put toward debt until I can start saving. Two: I was not able to deal with my apartment on my own; I struggled to keep it clean and organized, which was impossible. I made the hard choice to allow them into my apartment and see every intimate detail of my struggle with my depression and ADHD, and how it affected my kids, my husband, and me. I allowed them to see my shame and my self-loathing about having a living situation I was embarrassed that my kids lived in. I was very broken; my apartment was broken, my life was broken, and my finances were/are in shambles. But I opened up, and I let my village help me. It has been less than a week since they descended, but I am already seeing a difference in myself, my mental health, my children, my apartment, my finances, and my life. I am grateful to my village, and just because I am a broken villager right now, I am not as broken, and one day I am going to be ok and be able to help my village back.