We’d gotten to know each other after she saw my posts looking for work in a Facebook group for local moms. She’d hired me to clean her house, since she’d neglected it for so long after opening a business while also caring for a toddler and an infant. When I asked if she needed help at the store, she said no at first; then I asked if she’d be willing to barter me cleaning the store’s bathroom for some credit for clothes. Sadie smiled, first at me, then at Mia, clutching her new Thomas the Tank Engine footed pajamas I’d found in the boys’ section, and nodded. With the barter, Mia could walk in and pick out a dress or something that caught her eye when the need arose. I’d make an afternoon of it—going to lunch at the co-op, then over to Sprouts for her to pick something out. Her wardrobe was comprised entirely of used clothes and Walmart stretch pants found on clearance. But she held her head so high whenever it was time to pick out a dress, she might as well have been in an upscale department store.
When we moved into the transitional apartment building, my mom had given me boxes of antiques she’d displayed around the house I grew up in. Now, with the lack of space, it felt more like she’d burdened me with stuff she didn’t want to pay to put in storage. Most of the bigger stuff I took to donation centers or consignment shops because the studio’s small space, much like the homeless shelter where we had room for only one bag, left me no room for any of it. My lack of living space afforded me room only for things that were useful. I thought back to magazines I’d flipped through, with articles featuring smiling couples who’d chosen to minimize their belongings or elected to move into a tiny house, boasting how mindful they were about the environment. They could just as easily choose to move back into a regular house with two bedrooms, an office, and two-point-five baths. I’d feel differently about our studio apartment when I handed over my monthly rent check if I knew I could afford something triple its size.
During the weeks after I had moved from Travis’s to the studio, Pam offered me part of the loft in her shop for storage until I figured out what to do with all of it. I’d gone into Classic Clean’s office to refill my supplies, pick up my paycheck, and formally change my address.
“How’s the new place?” Pam had asked in her cheery way, and I tried to give a positive response, or at least try to imitate her disposition.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I just don’t know what to do with my stuff. Travis doesn’t want me to keep anything there, and I can’t afford a storage unit.” I stopped myself there, trying not to unload all of my stress on my boss. She had such a sincere way of asking how I was, fully listening when I spoke, she had started to fill a maternal role that my life desperately needed.
Decisions over what to keep and what to donate or attempt to sell weren’t easy. Things I stored were equally useless and priceless. Baby books, photos, old letters, and yearbooks had no value but took up valuable space. Then I whittled down my clothing, getting rid of winter and fishing gear I’d kept from Alaska, dresses and shirts I no longer wore regularly. Household things became the hardest to decide what stayed and what went. I not only had to decide what we had space for but what I could not afford to replace. My dad’s chili pot no longer had significant use, but it had a heavy hand in the sentimental value department, along with the casserole dishes my parents got at their wedding. Things, they were all just things, and I didn’t have space for much. So Mia and I each had two towels, washcloths, and sets of sheets. In my closet, which was originally built to house brooms and mops, I kept my entire wardrobe: two pairs of jeans, one pair of khakis, one nice button-up shirt, and a “fancy” dress I bought with my own money. The rest were my Classic Clean t-shirts and work pants. I didn’t have the heart to get rid of many of Mia’s things and found creative ways to store her stuffed animals, books, and toys so