The garage is mostly the way he left it. We use some of the tools when we need to. No doubt, I’m grateful to have anything I might ever (and will never) need.
I’m getting ready to paint my front door. It’s long over due, and it needs some care. I need a putty knife. I know there’s one in that garage somewhere. In the toolbox, I found throwing stars and a throwing knife.
He’d bought them for fun. He’d even built a wood block target for one of the garage walls so he could practice throwing them. He played around with them for a few months and then never used them again.
I’d forgotten how many he had. I counted 25 throwing stars of various shapes and sizes and 1 throwing knife. I’ve found different kinds of knives all over the house in the last few years.
Twenty-five throwing stars tucked carefully in a drawer inside his favorite toolbox. I wonder what drove him to such excess that he felt the need to buy so many.
He’d collected sets of darts the same way. Six or seven sets with extra feather sets and tips. He wanted to have darts available for friends to use when they came over. I get that. I don’t understand having a couple dozen sharp throwing weapons, but then he was obsessed with knives.
It reminds me about how obsessive he’d get about his hobbies, taking up space in the entire garage and flaunting how much he had while telling me I had too much stuff in my two small closet spaces.
Sometimes, these types of moments trigger flashbacks, but thankfully those are happening rarely after five years of reclaiming my life. More often than not, these things trigger annoyance that I have to add another thing to my declutter to do list.
For now, I’m going to leave them there. Summer is too hot for cleaning out the garage. When I do get a chance to declutter the space, I’ll get rid of them responsibly.
And I’ll find that putty knife so I can repair the scratches on the front door.