The Mausoleum is Being Sold or Else Got Foreclosed On.

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We used to call my mother's house the mausoleum, everything in life was about redecorating it, and spiffing it up and it's yard. "She's building a masoleum to herself", we said.  She would spend hours, shopping, collecting and redecorating, and this went beyond the cast of thousands snowman collection and included everything from buying an old 19th century wagon in the front yard with flowers planted around it, to purchasing those scrying globes and globes with marbles and a collection of birdhouses and placing them in the yard. She has a second home in Florida but this was her main home. Watching all this as we financially struggled was not easy. Even if we got a little help back then mostly car related, the whole family's values was based on STUFF.

It seemed like she thought she was going to get to live there forever.  It always seemed odd to me, that she never paid attention to aging or reality, but unlike other elderly people I know who worried about the future and care issues, she never did. She kept shopping until she dropped to the very last day I saw her. Past behavior is a sign of future behavior.

This recent news surprised me because that house was EVERYTHING to her. It's strange, with narcissists, they really don't have attachment to ANYTHING not even places, and a home they poured every dime and life energy into.  It seems to me they don't even think of the word HOME. I always knew that house meant a whole hell of a lot more to her then I ever did. 

She's lived there since the year I graduated high school, which is almost exactly 30 years ago. So my time in that house, was the nightmare year home from college, and a few summers in between semesters. I don't have many positive memories there. It's a nice house, around 2500 square feet but it's in a town that is underwater and somewhat depressed. The housing market sucks. She lives in the richest neighborhood in town aside from the street immediately by the country club and lake.

When I rotted in the Chicago ghetto, going without food and groceries, she got insurance pay-outs from my father's death and went to town, adding on at least three rooms to the house and remodeling at least 50 percent of it. At that time I believed it had been paid off too. She replaced almost all the house's furniture. There would be some remodels over the years, that were added.

She sent a chirpy email to 67 people. I had to be accidentally left on the email list. I still have to figure out how to block yahoo emails.  She can make downsizing even sound like a "trendy" thing. She wrote, she was "so happy" about the condo people redoing her plants. I can see through that a mile away, she was not one to wax poetic about flowers though she'd plant some for appearances.

It's weird how she brags to 67 people about moving and in the email, tells there there is a ton of free stuff, she needs to get rid of. She always portrayed herself as the lady of the manor, dispersing things to the peasants, but the reality is, her solely upper middle class friends have all the money in the world to buy whatever they need.

  "We are now calling home ^^^^^^^^^^^ even though we still own ***********.  We have a ton of work ahead of us, having garage sales, and getting rid of so many things we do not have room for or no longer need in the Condo.  (If you need anything or would be willing to help, let us know).  A small garage full of outdoor furniture, tools, lawn ornaments, lawn equipment, birdhouses, ladders, automotive tools, woodworking tools, and the list goes on and on."

  I find the garage sales odd too. Isn't she kind of old to dig through boxes and do a garage sale sell-off?   Hasn't she ever heard of a living estate sale? It seems ironic how someone so invested in stuff where "things" were everything is now handing it all out. Now all the stuff she spent so much money on, will end up in the scrapheap or some stranger's yard. Is that what it all has come to? All that effort she put into getting it, and now it ends up like this.

I confronted her at least a few times about her materialism and in on letter years ago when she told me I had nothing to show for my life, I told her in a letter, "It's not who dies with the most stuff wins!"

I have a weird attitude about "stuff".  I am not attached to things in a normal way.  I've been without many things before even a bed. It changes a person.  I do need some things to survive like my medical equipment and would cry if the art or stamp collection was lost,  but this idea of going through life, where belongings are where most of your meaning in life is focused on, is messed up.

Money is good to have, I can't deny that, for me having money would mean being able to help and see more people, security and the ability to procure more experiences but the idea of "stuff" is an interesting one to me. Too many things can be a burden. Materialism is a dead end. You can lose everything in this world even if you had it like that one neighbor of mine who got evicted. When you die all your stuff gets disbursed to the world or maybe a few heirs. One thing about materialists, the way they focus on all the stuff, they all act like they will live forever. When you get put in the nursing home almost all your things are taken away from you.

 What is the meaning of living for stuff and shopping? Where does it lead?  The suburban normative upper middle class life, always looked exhausting to me. Keeping track of all your junk and taking care of it takes a lot of time and energy. It's running on a hamster wheel to nowhere, even the narcissists hit a dead end sooner or later once their resources run out or they get too old.

Matthew 6:19-21

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.