It’s been two and a half years since Ricardo passed and recently I had the courage and energy to tackle my storage room. It was a big project. First of all, the storage had a dark colour that I never liked, so my plan was to paint it. Second, while I was on it I realized I never really ‘owned’ it – it was always someone else project. Ricardo organized it and make it his handwork space. When he was gone, Nick took it over and crowded it with his equipment. I was always using the periphery of it, grabbing things as fast as I could to leave the place in seconds and not having to deal with the mess.
But time changes everything. Ricardo passed away, Nick moved out. I needed to do something with it. So I asked a friend to help me painting it while I would try to organize or, at least, make sense of it all. It was hard – harder than I had anticipated. Some tears rolled down my eyes when I realized I didn’t even know what was in there – still so much of Ricardo was in that small space!
In around a week we finished the walls, installed new shelves and sort of organized boxes and things around, selling many things that I didn’t need and making enough space for new things to come and be stored in there, like my niece’s luggage – she is here living with us for at least a year and I needed the space for her. It is fabulous to see the energy flowing again! But I still kept a corner for Ricardo’s things that I think Ian will use or I am still not ready to let go.
As hard as it was, it was also a wonderful feeling and I know Ricardo would have approved it.
Leave a Reply