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Time is a valuable commodity that a preemie parent can never trade or purchase more of. Instead, we lose more every day and regret not using it better. I didn’t have time to prepare my house for Zoey coming home before she was born. We found out she was a girl less than two weeks before her birth. Her nursery was painted at her mother’s house and we found a crib we liked at a garage sale. We had a long list of things to do and buy for our little girl that was unfinished when she was born. Sarah was able to schedule a baby shower after two months of Zoey being in the NICU, something normally done before the baby is born.
We have finally moved past the guilt of not being at the hospital 24/7. I learned to take the mornings for myself and try to accomplish as much as I can before visiting the hospital. Sarah is able to watch Zoey at work through a web camera we can access at any time. The past two weeks for me have been an exercise in material management. I like books, correction, I love books. I have always dreamed of having my own personal library however the problem of shelving has always limited my library to being stacked in boxes and those boxes were kept in Zoey’s future room. After Zoey was born I no longer needed motivation to go through my collection and weed out the books I would never read with the ones I planned to. The initial run through cut my collection in half. I few carloads of books were donated and I felt better afterward. A second glance at what was left over had me going through the books again, this time asking myself what will I read and what will I really read? The collection was dwindled down some more and now I have Zoey’s room cleared for decorating.
After taking care of the hoarding mess, I started looking into other aspects of my life I could simplify. I started listening to The Minimalist podcast and recalled a documentary by the same guys Sarah and I had watched before Zoey was born. I have always been a collector. When I was a child it was comic books and later DVDs and novels. Last year I became obsessed with typewriters and finally weeded out the ones I didn’t particularly care to type on. Currently, my house is a mess and I know it is my own doing. Last week, I took some time during a fit of insomnia and cleaned the basement, reorganizing my gym and now spend the first 30 minutes of my day trying to stay in shape. After all, I can’t take care of a baby if I’m not taking care of myself. One of the cats I rescued last year found a new home outside never being able to adapt to a domesticated life. In the time that Zoey has been in the NICU, my house went from an organized mess I was content with, to a tornado scattered devastation I had to address.
There is still much to do. I found shelving that will finally create the library I always wanted, something I hope Zoey will enjoy later in life. There are closets that need to be cleaned out and cooking tools that I have never used that need to find a home at the local Goodwill. Why do I have these old stacks of bill stubs from three years ago? Is that shirt ever going to fit again? How many times will I watch that overrated movie? Will I ever learn to play guitar? How many coffee mugs does one person need? No, hammer pants will never come back into fashion.The desire for nesting has started.
I know how this all started. When you grow up in a house that you feel you have little control over your life you start to find things that you can take charge of. Collecting comic books is a way of claiming something for yourself, organizing the boxes and finding that last issue of the original teenage mutant ninja turtles to complete the series gives one a feeling of accomplishment, but it is short lived and you move onto something else.
Children learn the behavior of their parents and this habit for collecting is not something I want to pass on. That comic book collection I mentioned I still have it and I haven’t looked into a single box for over a decade. People tend to hold onto things for security. Whatever I was trying to gain or protect myself from is gone now. There is no need to daydream about swinging around the city with Batman or Daredevil. I have a little girl that is going to need a dad when she comes home and he doesn’t need to be distracted with stacks of books and comics that no longer serve a purpose. The only superhero I need to be concerned about these days is the one that I can be for her.
Photo: Pixabay