Channeling the Pigsty

I just spent the last 20 minutes cleaning up around my recliner.

When Raymond and I finally had enough money, and the kids were done with that spit up stage, we bought new furniture for our living room. Besides a couch and a chair rocker, Raymond bought a big blue recliner for himself that fit his stature, and I bought a smaller burgundy tweed recliner that fit my stature. They were always side by side with an end table between them.

The area around Raymond's chair was always a pigsty, especially after he became wheelchair bound. There would be books stacked all around, papers, magazines, projects, water bottles, cough drops, and anything that pertained to Raymond's latest hobby.

My chair would have a nice basket next to it with my magazines and books. Everything would be neat and picked up.

Sometimes Raymond's area would get to the point that I could not stand it and I would either ask him to clean it up or I would dig in and straighten everything up. Other times, it would get so bad he would clean it up himself. Believe me when I say it had to be pretty bad for that to happen, and it would usually follow a time when after he had been sick for a while and I had just left him alone.

The big blue recliner is gone now. The rocker chair sits on the other side of the table from my recliner. It is a change, but I have gotten use to it.

What I cannot get used to is the fact that the area around my recliner is now a pigsty. It is like I am channeling the pigsty that used to surround Raymond's recliner. Just tonight I recycled 8 water bottles, 2 months worth of TV Guide, school notices, old agendas from Council meetings, several pieces of junk mail that I thought I might want to read, but didn't, and picked up four books that I intend to read eventually. It is so weird for me to live like that, usually everything has a place, like the giant recycling bin in my laundry room.

Maybe this chair pigsty is just my way of keeping part of Raymond with me all the time. I don't know. I do know that there were other qualities of Raymond that I admired more than the chair pigsty, and I would rather channel some of those than keep making these messes.