Byron - I hope you can find the help you need and the support you are looking for.

Life is complicated.

Superman and Cloggie… I wish you well. I don’t know your story and it’s none of my business but I hope you and your children are able to reconnect at some point and put past emotions to pasture.

I'm definitely a COB, but my problem is that I'm too giving, I.E., easily taken advantage off. Literally for decades, bad things happen as it gets close to my birthday, Murphy was an optimist. I actually thought that was changing this year, only to get kicked in the nutz with a Storm Trooper, spiked boot. I'm clearly not meant to be happy, as the one who was truly my soul mate, accepted me and shared the same loves, was taken from me, I finally find someone else, who is close, by no means the same level that I had, but at least could make me smile, and turns out that she, at 47, has been given 6 months, thanks to cancer. My Indian name is Under Black Cloud, people keep saying that something is meant for me to have survived several things that should have killed me, I say God isn't finished punishing me yet for who ever I was in a previous life. Fact is, I'm tired, and only wanted to be happy, clearly, that is too much to ask.

You can’t control what happens around you, only your response to it. Apparently, your job is to make others lives better. That’s not a bad thing.

Dave

I learned the hard way about personal downsizing. My brother, who has MS, wound up in the hospital. It was determined that he needed to be in a care facility. He needed me to come out to Idaho and liquidate his belongings. There were very few treasures that he wanted as he had virtually no place for “stuff” in the facility. He had kept virtually everything since he left our parents home in 1969. He had a massive accumulation of stuff. It not only filled his apartment, but also 2 units in a storage facility. The big one being 10x30 and an 8x10, both of them filled to the rafters.
It was a painstaking process going through all of it, but I had a mission and I wasn’t going to let him down.
Going through all his “momentos of life” was sobering. Throwing away his life was my job. I laughed and I cried, but I learned a valuable lesson. We don’t need a lot of things. I have spent my time since getting rid of everything that only means something to me. Why make my survivors go through the task. Honestly, I think I am much happier being unburdened of all the flotsam and jetsam. I missed some of the stuff at first, but that feeling quickly passed.

I did complete my mission in Idaho. My brother is well taken care of, and happy. I am going to see him next week !

Going through your past is just that. Memories. Life is a rollercoaster with good and bleak times. I try not to live live through the rear view mirror. What was done was done. It's gone. Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, dream and plan for Tomorrow. Gotta dream it before you can do it.

My parents house was much like that. Dad was an Air Force pilot, and we moved a lot. When he retired mom and dad moved back home to within a few miles of where they grew up. They inherited all of my dad's parents stuff, and my mom's parents stuff. Along with mom's sister's stuff. When cleaning out the garage I found canceled checks from my grandmother's account from the 1960s. I did not even shred those, as she had been dead for 20+ years.

I finally hired an estate broker. My brother and I both looked through to house and found anything we wanted, and I signed the contract with the estate broker. At that moment he owned 40% of the stuff, except any family photos or documents he might find. He went through the house from the attic, to the rafters in the detached garage. He labeled and priced everything, put it on tables, and filed the permit, and ran ads for the sale. He then hired my wife, myself and some good friends to work the sale, and he paid us in cash every day. He had total paperwork and every receipt. He filed the sales taxes due, and handed me a check for the 60% of everything. He worked HARD, to get it done for a full week before the sale. He did invite some fellow estate people to get a first look and buy before the general public. What little was left, we donated to Goodwill.

It is really amazing what some people will buy. Open boxes of laundry soap, to full furniture sets and the "good" dishes.

Well said. Byron...keep hanging in there. You never know what's going to happen next.
Sometimes that's all we've got...when we're at the end of a rope, tie a knot in it, and hang on!

Life and living is really about memories --good and bad
The trick is to keep making more of them -- treasure the past but look to the future.