Helping my Friend
This past month I enlisted my downsizing expertise to help my friend and neighbor, Lisa, whom I admire very much. When we first got together to talk through our plan for packing up their entire house to move, she told me she had friends who had offered to help. Often clients will offer up their husbands or adult children to help me, which is usually not efficient because of a little snag we call Family Dynamics. When you have two family members and one objective professional working on a project as emotionally fraught as categorizing and discarding possessions, the hours feel more like couples therapy than organizing. But bringing in nice friends to help is a good idea. They don’t care how much the plates cost or who gave you the books. They don’t remember the fight you had over wearing the winter coat.
I told her to enlist the friends she deemed capable of assisting without trying to take over, which is difficult for many people. Lisa had only 2 days available in which to give input in person, so we needed to be as efficient as possible. We did not need to many cooks in the kitchen, if you know what I mean. In the end, 2 out of 4 of her friends were able to curb their bossy-pants instincts (or maybe they didn’t have any.)
Friend number one was perfect: silently supportive. She took everything Lisa was letting go of out to her own car, and at the end of her 2 hour shift she drove away with a car full of donations. Beautiful.
Our next helper was not as silent, but still supportive, and Lisa probably enjoyed the distracting conversation and her heightened energy. The same was true for the only man who helped us (the next day). He could not have taken a back seat in this process if his life depended on it. He was not an “assistant” kind of guy. But, he made her laugh a lot and we still got things done. So, not a bad experience.
Our third helper on that first day, an incredibly thoughtful and calm octogenarian, was not trying to carry or lift heavy things. No problem. We had amassed a small collection of family treasures made of sterling silver. Lisa mentioned needing to have them polished.
“Who could I find to do that?”
Our volunteer ended up standing at the kitchen sink polishing for about an hour. We started calling her Hazel, like the maid in the eponymous TV show from 1961 starring Shirley Booth.
Every now and then, Hazel would peek in to check on us and carefully carry something fragile over to the designated Fragile Table. She would wander into the office to mounting tension as Lisa and I went through every single item, and say,
“Oh, Lisa. I love you. You are doing so well.”
It was such a tedious process, not at all fun. And just as it got to the brink of frustration again, here comes Hazel,
“Lisa, you are so amazing for doing this. Look at you!”
For those 2 hours of Hazel’s shift, I got to hang out with these dear friends, the kind who don’t need words to understand how to help each other. And I felt useful because this was not an easy room to sort out, everything in the office belonged to her husband, currently hospitalized and unavailable for input. Anyone less experienced than a professional would’ve given up, or at least stopped for a Diet Coke.
Hazel brought her a Diet Coke and we let her complain about how much shit her husband had.
“Can you believe this mess!?” She said. “LET IT OUT, Lisa!” I countered, and we chuckled.
She kept going through the office supplies and empty briefcases, not knowing what shape her husband would be in, or when he’d be released. Would he want any of this stuff? Would he be able to use it? She was beyond tired and way past stressed out. Much easier to watch TV or get wasted and ignore everything else to return to his bedside.
That one day we downsized their belongings for 6 hours with a 2 hour lunch break in the middle, an 8 hour day of mind-bending decisions. Every helper was so pleasant and glad to be there. The good vibes were off the charts!
How did she get here?
Lisa has cultivated those relationships and brought those wonderful people who love her into her life. People only help you move if they really like you. She spends regular time with each of those friends IRL. She’s retired. She has time. But it’s still a choice she makes to spend that precious time out, building community.
