My parents are finally making the move to a retirement facility with a higher level of care. This has begun the final clean-out of their condo.
“We need your help with the master bedroom closet,” my mom said in her lowered voice, her eyes focused, while my dad pretended not to be napping on the couch.
They are in their late 70s and early 80s. Through many houses and multiple moves, there were still boxes left untouched. Now, with the final move, it was time to go through them.
You never know what you will find in a closet.
There is the occasional purchased birthday item they forgot to send, a cooler from nineteen-ninety-two, and impulse buys from Facebook algorithms that apparently worked for their demographic. The boxes on the floor have multiple Sharpies written on them. Some crossed out from multiple moves were missing the box tops. Many are boxes I remember packing my own bedroom in.
And then my phrase of the day begins: “You saved THIS?”
I find my book report on the planets written in edited cursive (thank you public education) and bound between faded construction paper, showchoir “spirit” buttons with my wonky hair and bedazzled straps, some sort of Monet themed fish art from third grade, report cards, songs I had written, poems, hand written letters from every Mother’s and Father’s Day, and yearbooks from every year my mom could buy one. I could have sat in that closet for hours reading my bad poetry and longing for my twenty-one-year-old skin to magically come away from my college graduation pictures to my tired face. Instead I glanced. I was on a mission. Box after box we went through. And box after box, it was clear that most of these boxes belonged to me.
I’m in my mid-40s with husband(s) and houses under my belt, yet there are still boxes of my things taking up what little space they have.
Hyper-focused, I make three piles: The pitch pile, the “pack to go with them” pile, and the pile that goes home with me. You can guess which pile was the largest.
My blue minivan is now packed with boxes, placed between oddly shaped trophies I either won for “most talented” or “most congenial” (because Lord knows I won nothing else). Their closet is cleaned, except I now have more stuff to go through.
It will come as a shock to no one to know that I did not touch any of it for over a week. It just stayed there in the back of my van. My daughter said it smells musty and asks me what I’ll do with it.
“It’s mommy’s stuff from my childhood….I’ll get to it,” I say into the rear view mirror.
“Like from the 1900s?” she says with a grin.
A week had passed, and I give myself a gold star for finally transferring them from my van into my garage. Progress.
But the next Saturday afternoon I put on my coat, get out a folding chair, and settle into my garage. It will be hours before I re-emerge.
I sit and read all of my handwritten notes. I admire my art. I read my 8th grade journals. I smile at pictures of my old boyfriends standing awkwardly in my prom pictures. I hold my bunny-shaped piggy bank that somehow lasted this long. I laugh at things I would not have laughed at then. I review my life from an artifact at age seven to adulthood. I find at least twenty-five cassette tapes featuring yours truly that I used to make using my plug-in red double-cassette radio player. Some I would pretend to be a DJ from the local radio station, some were me just creating songs in the moment, and some where I was talking. It was really the original TikTok video or influencer reel – just from nineteen ninety-four with poor sound quality.
I became aware of a theme. It was all the same.
“I’m Katy. I’m nine years old, and I want to be a singer.”
“I’m Katy. I’m eleven years old, and someday I want to be an actress and a singer.”
It never changed. All my “all about the author” at the end of my reports said this. All the shows I recorded on my little red cassette player said this. Every single program from all the community theater and professional theater I had ever been a part of that my parents saved, all said the same thing.
It never changed. It never changed until it did.
I do not hate my life or my career path. I do not regret the hard choices I have made or the sacrifices I have made. I am proud of my Masters degree and the many years of teaching under my belt. I love my house, the park across the street, and being a mom. I do not regret any of my decisions because they led me to who I am in this moment. But all these things in all these boxes leave me to wonder if that little girl would recognize the woman I am now. If I could bring her into the picture, what expression would she have on her face?
In hindsight, that little girl always knew. She knew what she wanted to be. She didn’t always know how she would get there, but she definitely knew what she wanted to be.
Maybe that’s the question we should ask ourselves and ask our daughters and sons. Who do you want to be? Not what do you want to be, but who do you want to be.
I’m still a singer, but I’m also a lot of other things. I’m compassionate, a fierce advocate for my adopted son, a writer, a deep feeler, inquisitive, a sexual assault survivor, a lover of rescue dogs, a seeker, a lover of democracy, a teacher, a friend, a lover, a mom.
I may not have a Grammy or have graced the stages of Broadway, but I am without a doubt, a singer.
Through this process, I have come to know two things. The first being that I will be giving my children all of their things when they move out on their own. I would like my closet space, thank you very much. The second thing I know is there is still time to ask the question, who do you want to be? There is not just a single shot at becoming something. It is not spontaneous but gradual. The very word is present-tense. Becoming. We ‘become’ in real time with the goal of never stopping. You have freedom to add and subtract at will.
I guess I learned a third thing, too: Think bigger.
There is still time for my Broadway debut. Just you wait.
