#sentimental objects

DISCLAIMER: throughout this post I talk about receiving expensive gifts as a kid. I don’t want it to come off as bragging, and keep in mind there was always a catch resulting in countless traumas. I’m stating this stuff as fact, and I really don’t want to seem entitled but I know that it will come across that way to some. And I’m sorry it does in advance.

Also CW// emotional abuse, gaslighting

SO…

Throughout my life I’ve been gaslit/emotionally abused/scapegoated and just have always had a very fucked up family dynamic. I’m not going to go FULLY into detail on that because there’s just. WAY too much. And this post isn’t supposed to be my full life story; just why the whole deal with my sewing machine is especially freaking me out.

I literally just made a post about my sewing machine and mentioned this in the tags, but I want to share the full story.

In my fucked up life and household, I had one shining light. My Memom. She loved me, supported me, and was always there. If I’m being honest, I was frequently bought nice shit by both my parents and my Memom, but there was a major difference between the two.

My mom would try and buy me anything I wanted, even though she’s always struggled with money in general. We’re both bipolar 1. And she had a bad shopping addiction. A lot of weight fell on her to raise her mentally unstable kids and she would but us stuff to make up for our overall family dysfunction. The problem was that when we got in our heated arguments (you could probably call them fights, but they rarely got physical) she would use the things she bought me as leverage to guilt me into feeling like an ungrateful piece of shit. “After all the expensive things I buy you you have the NERVE to say you have it bad? You spoiled ungrateful bitch!” Etc.

(I’d like to note that she’s bettering herself and working on her recovery now and has made stellar progress, which is why I’m comfortable keeping her in my life. My dad was just distant, example being it was always him and “you people” referring to my mom and brother and I. He’s gotten a bit better too, but definitely has a form of undiagnosed narcissism)

My Memom loved me unconditionally though. She would remove me from that hellhole house to go have sleepovers with her, get me icecream and make nice food (her bean burritos were the best) and was always just… there for me. Always. And as for the expensive things she got me, it was always things that had to do with my creativity. She encouraged me with all of my artistic talents and skills. She’d take me to Jo-Ann fabrics all the time so I could raid the fleece remnants for plushies. I got my first sewing machine when I was 7 (which was a beginner $70 singer my mom got me out of spite towards an art teacher, but that’s another story)

The funny thing about my Memom is if it didn’t have to do with my talents, she wouldn’t even consider buying it. The newest Pokémon game for $40? No way. But, 17” 2007 MacBook Pro (in 2012)? Corel Painter 11? Basically new Wacom Cintiq 24HD from Craigslist? Sure!

That includes my sewing machine. In 2013, she got me the biggest baddest beast of a machine: The Brother VM6200D, otherwise known as the Dreamweaver XE. She financed this bitch for 8k. AND got me TruEmbroidery, which at the time was the only embroidery software for Mac, and was half the price of the machine itself.

…And was still paying it off when she died suddenly in 2015 of an aortic aneurism.

My parents covered the remaining financial payments, which had about 3k left.

So my machine isn’t just a machine to me: it’s a coping mechanism, it was a gift from my Memom, and it’s one of the very few nice gifts that I got just because someone loved me without having it used as leverage for guilt tripping. I love this machine. I cherish it. But he’s also 8 years old, and the AMAZING mechanic we got it from as well as the one that’s always serviced it has never had any major issues with repairs. I’ve always gotten it back in 3 days or less. So for him to have to take it back a 3rd time to try and repair the same issue, and have it in his possession for 16 days now, is definitely freaking me out. I’ve been told that it can be fixed, which it damn well should be able to be considering he’s a Brother and he’s only 8, but damn. Paranoia has not been easy on me, and having no access to arguably my greatest coping mechanism is even worse.

I know he can be fixed but holy shit… I’m just… upset. I’ll reblog with an update when I get him back. But for now, have a bit of context on my beloved Dreamweaver.

And also, here’s a picture of my Memom. I miss her every single day.

Scissors

Prism Series

Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that there is an awkward and painful stage of sorting through the deceased's belongings.  Photographer Jennifer Loeber explores this tension in an exquisite photo essay of the strange reality of objects outliving the flesh.  

She writes:  

I found myself deeply overwhelmed by the need to keep even the most mundane of my Mom's belongings when she died suddenly this past February.  Instead of providing comfort and good memories they became a source of deep sadness and anxiety and I knew the only way I would be able to move past that was to focus on a way to interact with them cathartically.  

I had recently become active on Instagram and realized that utilizing the casual aspects of sharing on the app was a way to diminish my own sentimentality toward the objects my Mom left behind.  Each image is paired with an archival image of her that speaks to its subject.  

If your house was burning, what would you take with you? A question asked by the burning house website http://theburninghouse.com/

This talk made me start to think about objects and possessions in a different way - no longer thinking of stuff as being inherintly evil or bad.

In the past I have really worried abou the detremental effects of stuff and consumerism.

One of Holli's catigories for her items was sentimental objects - this made me start to think about the good effects objects can have on peoples well being - Objects from home make me feel good - sentimental keep sakes are a way of remembering.