11 Years Later in the Transitions Business and Here I am!

Not much has changed with people over the past 11 years since I found myself suddenly jobless, living in Chevy Chase, MD and decided to hang out a flyer at the local market. "Packrats and Dustbunnies, I am the Gunk n' Junk Exterminator!"

Immediately got a client with a house full of disarray, a history of cancer, two kids in college, clothes in her closet from size 12 through size 28, and a husband in a downtown office building. 4 weeks later, we had gone through her closets, downsized her wardrobe, hauled bag after bag of too small but very nice clothes to charity, ransacked the catacombs under her daughter's bed, thrown out old food, cleaned the pool area, organized her studio, cleaned out the attic, sat and watched her cry, conducted a very large yard sale,  upholstered a headboard, and cleaned as we went. I had a woman working with me on that job who cleaned as I organized. She would not let me touch her bedroom and handle the final details of paperwork that was strewn around the room. Two months after, I called her and she had slipped and fallen on a few magazines on the floor, on the carpet and broken an ankle. Fragile bones- those chemo patients have. So, she was back in bed, wallowing in her self imposed prison.

Dozens of clients later and  hundreds of stories I have found they all have the same characteristic: Self imposed resistance to going forward. They stop me at a point where, for some reason, something begins to slap them in the face. Something very uncomfortable.  Or they feel like "they've done enough" and can handle the rest on their own...but they never do. IF  they could they would have in the first place. Their house would not be a ( be nice, Laurie, ) pig sty, shambles, disaster waiting to happen. Their dysfunction would not be overwhelming their function. Yikes!

My latest story is with two younger seniors who hired me to help them downsize, and sell their junque. Their situation: Illness, lack of finances, large mortgage, and a super duper case of DENIAL and OVERWHELM. We were going forward, with positive stride, until yesterday when life hit him, at least, square in the jaw. She has been passive-aggressive, reluctant to make any direct wishes known.

The " I can'ts, I won't, I don't know how, started pouring out of him. History running into the present. Reality smacking him on the head. SMACK! "ou are sick, you can not do this any longer, your life has changed, you have to change with it." He freaked. NO MORE! He completely stopped the progress he was making. Dead stop.

I wrote him an email last night and told him he has experts working with him, fulfilling his wishes, and working with he and his wife to forward their lives. All they have to do is be there, communicate and get out of the way and watch the transformation occur. He called me and said he was stopping the work and firing his realtor.

Y'know. I get so sick and tired of this. But that's my problem.

People create their own realities. What is mine going to be? Where have I come from, where am I now and where am I going? Working with the mentally ill was never what I thought I'd be doing. Transforming environments and the lives within them, as a result, has always  been what I wanted to do. What is my next step?