Those Models Broke My Heart

I recently moved. I went from a big, rambling victorian house to a 9x9 bedroom and a storage unit which isn't much bigger. It's been a bit of an adjustment to say the least.

Before we moved, my 19 year old son and I decided to tackle the attic together. Honestly, it had been so long since anyone had been up there, we had no clue what we'd find.

The original plan was for him to hand things down to me but the pull down stairs were wobbly and wonky and it didn't work. He would have fallen on his face.

We decided the best course of action would be to just toss stuff down. If it crashed to the floor and smashed, then so be it. Maybe it wasn't meant to make the move. We had too much crap anyway.

It was actually kind of fun. We dramatically yelled "clear" as he tossed stuff into the hall down stairs. We found a dot matrix printer, he couldn't identify because he'd never seen technology that old. There were a lot of books including one on making your own baby food.  There was a kid's record player and some hopelessly ugly artwork. Throwing that stuff, then throwing most of it out, was cathartic.

Then we came across the models. Over the years, my husband had bought several models. A moon probe. A saturn 5 rocket. The Creature From the Black Lagoon.  There were probably 10 or 15 all together. They'd been in the attic for at least a decade, probably longer.

Those models killed me. Not literally, of course but they made me impossibly sad. He had been excited about them when he purchased them. But he had put them away to do later. He would work on them when he had more time he'd said. He spent countless hours on the couch watching tv during the years those models were in the attic. Yet there was never enough time.

What was he waiting for? Life is short. Nobody gets promised a tomorrow. If you're passionate or excited about something, you need to do it. Forget about waiting for the time to be right because it never will be perfect. If you let it, stuff will always get in your way.

Those models live in our storage unit now. I humored him and packed them away with the Christmas decorations and the baker's rack and the bookcase my dad made in shop. He isn't ever going to build them.

We moved in part because diabetic retinopathy has ravaged his eyesight. He's not blind (yet) but it's close. He can no longer see well enough to build them. He talks about reinventing himself and I hope that he can. But his vision is not going to improve. He will never be able to build those models.

He waited for the right time when the right time was when he bought them. If you love it, if it interests you, if it resonates with you, then the right time is always now. Do things, my friends. Fun things. Crazy things. Things which bring you joy. Don't wait to live your life.

Those models broke my heart.