Inspired by the autograph thread, and I had some nice ones.
Parents told me to go and not come back when I was 18. Then apparently dumped everything I owned.
Nope. But I sense there is more to this story.
I left home under good circumstances, but over the decades all my stuff left behind disappeared.
When I left home there were a couple of boxes of random junk that I had at my Mom’s house, but those boxes faded away somehow over the years.
When I left for college, my mother packed up everything from my bedroom and transferred it into a tiny back bedroom and took over my former bedroom for her study. I didn’t exactly feel the love when I came home to all my things boxed up and crammed into the tiny room. I never spent any of my college summers at home because I no longer really felt welcome there. So while I was never tossed out, the ultimate effect was the same.
I left home sorta fine and sorta not fine. Dad understood but mother always hated me. So in the years since his death most of my things still in the house – as well as a lot of his things – went to church sales and trash. I’m OK with most of it except for some of the motorcycle parts (including a 1920s sidecar) and some tools. But its like a divorce – better to lose than to have put up with that psycho one more day.
My stuff is there, but my room became more of a storage closet. When I had to come back home, I slept mostly on the couch or at odd hours in other beds until my sister moved out. I could still sleep in my room, but I had to navigate around a bunch of boxes and clear off my bed, and I just didn’t like it in there.
When my mother sold her house in Mexico, part of the agreement was that she was selling it furnished. As it was stuffed to the rafters with an insane amount of stuff - plenty to furnish two or three houses - she was able to have movers ship a large selection of her possessions to Iowa, and still leave an extremely beautifully furnished house behind (I actually thought the house was much nicer when she’d packed up, as it was too full beforehand).
Anyway, one of the things she left behind was a huge, professional photo of me as a bride (by Bachrach in Boston, if I recall correctly - these things mean nothing to me but apparently that was “the” photographer at the time of my wedding, so of course my mother had to get a Bachrach photo).
So when we toured the house with the people who bought it, they we amazed and delighted at all the absolutely beautiful possessions my mother was leaving behind for them. They were a little non-plussed at the wedding photo, though, and took me aside with worried expressions: “Say, um, what about that wedding photo of you? Doesn’t your mother want that?”
I just shrugged.
My parents are extremely toxic, and I once told my sister that I’d felt very badly about going off to college and leaving my siblings behind. She said, “It’s okay. We started fighting about who got your room as soon as you walked out the door.”
I knew enough not to leave behind anything I valued.
Not by parents, but a friend of mine had her stuff – stored at her grandmother’s – tossed by her schizophrenic aunt when she left for college. The aunt was angry that my friend’s stuff was cluttering up the aunt’s (imaginary and celebrity*) husband’s garage.
- Won’t name the celebrity to avoid doxxing my friend. To be clear, the celebrity is a real person – but the marriage was entirely imaginary.
Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays rookie cards, along with at least a thousand other miscellaneous cards that would sell today for a minimum of $25 each.
The usual, I was in lurve, they hated him and moved 4 states away the day after I graduated high school. He came to visit and invited me to his parents house 5 states away. His folks even called my folks. Screaming ensued. I have no idea what I even packed, but I didn’t go back for years and years. I never saw any of my stuff again.
My folks did this to my brother when he started moving out w/o telling them (at age 21) to ostensibly rent his coworker’s basement (it was a lie, he was dating her but didn’t want to tell my folks and this has become how he starts ALL his relationships and this is still the same lie he tells my folks). As he started to disassemble his bed, my dad declared since he hadn’t bought it he couldn’t have it w/o paying my folks back. After much yelling btwn them, my dad told him he could have it and then dad tossed the largest pieces out the 2nd story bedroom window; of course they were too damaged and my brother took what he’d packed and stormed out for good. Dad bagged up and threw away everything left in the bedroom.
Truth be told, I’m not positive why my folks were so upset at their 21 year old son moving out, but not being a parent I can only guess it was something to do w/ the disrespect of not telling them before doing so.