No More Laundry
An introduction -- CONTENT WARNING FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT.
“I spend most of my time thinking about things like laundry and buying stationery supplies.” —Wallace Shawn.
Hello!
It’s Abby.
I write, read, and build miniatures.
To be honest with you, I started this newsletter because I’m moving in exactly three days.
My previous home was lovely. Pink walls, built-in bookshelves, funky tiling on the ceiling (and to think I rented it that way!), and the loveliest neighborhood on the planet.
I lived there for almost two years until I was sexually assaulted in my backyard, right beside my garage.
The house had everything I wanted. I spent most of my days writing and creating in what I had dubbed “The Writing Room,” otherwise known as my enclosed porch. It had a beautiful view of the backyard and was always warm.
After the assault at the end of April, I no longer liked the writing room, and it quickly became filled with dust and untouched projects.
I then stopped liking my kitchen and my bathroom. Dishes piled up in my sink, and I couldn’t get myself to brush my teeth or shower.
I thought I could keep the enthusiasm I’d held for so long when it came to my bedroom, and I spent two days rearranging and redecorating it. I sold my bedframe. I added an armchair. I made it cozy.
And yet, I still stopped liking it. The armchair filled itself with laundry, clean and dirty.
My favorite room in the house had always been the living room. And when I started barricading my front door with my couch and no longer spending time there, I knew something had to change.
I had to move. I had to move immediately.
“Our homes are not defined by geography or one particular location, but by memories, events, people, and places that span the globe.” – Marilyn Gardner.
Before I could move, I had to physically find a way to get out my front door.
Even when I moved my couch—my barricade—I had another problem.
Since the laundry basket in my room was full and the “laundry chair” was too, I had reusable grocery bags of the rest of my laundry sitting at my front door.
I had to use a laundromat—like many people—and since my brain was under fire from trauma, I couldn’t even bring myself to move the laundry bags into my room. They just sat at the front door and waited for me to do something. But I couldn’t do anything about them, so there was no way in Hell I’d be making it to a laundromat.
I ran online and started obsessively scheduling showings for APARTMENT FOR RENT - AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY!
I saw thirteen apartments in three days.
I shoved my laundry bags slightly to the side each time, opened my front door just a crack, and booked it to my car and back.
With all the showings and desperation, I was ready to pay a stupid amount for a stupid location because I needed to leave. I didn’t care what I had to do, and I was begging people to let me move in before August, before July, before I lost my mind.
And by the grace of God (God, also known as a wonderful woman on Facebook Marketplace), I found an apartment that was 1) not stupidly priced, 2) not ten years away from where I wanted it to be, and 3) somewhere I could move in before June.
I toured it.
I applied.
I got it.
Then I realized the inevitable had finally come.
I would need constant access to my car—which was parked outside since I had stopped using my garage—and I needed to pack my entire house.
But I couldn’t fit everything through a crack in my barely opened front door. I needed all of it out.
Which meant I needed to do my laundry.
The laundry, of course, was not the main thing holding me back or making me feel like shit in my house. But it wasn’t helping, and even if I shoved all the trauma into a closet, I was still left with piles and piles of laundry to do.
When I was touring all those apartments, I was looking for things that were the absolute bare minimum.
Can I put at least 50% of my stuff here? Check. I can sell or donate the rest. I’m willing to do that. I’ll get rid of it all if I have to.
Do I feel like the walk from my car to my house is short and safe? Check.
Do I at least have a place for my bed, and is there a toilet? Check and check.
Is it far enough away from where the assault happened? Check check check check check.
But until that magical Facebook listing, I hadn’t considered how I would handle the most important tasks around my house or whether I would even be able to get them done in my emotional state/new physical state.
The Facebook Apartment saved me because it had an in-unit washer and dryer.
I could have cried and thrown myself into that woman’s arms when she gave me the tour.
Finding a new place to live where I’d feel safe and comfortable was the biggest weight off my shoulders, of course.
Finding a place with secure parking, a quiet neighborhood, a dishwasher, and a flattop stove (I felt like a billionaire at that point) definitely didn’t hurt.
But knowing I never had to leave to do my laundry was a godsend.
The morning after the assault, after a sleepless night cowering in my closet with a kitchen knife and pepper spray, I had run to the nearest laundromat before I thought anyone would be there—it was just about five in the morning—and I washed the clothes I had worn the previous night.
And I washed them again.
And again.
At the end of my laundromat trip, I had spent over sixty dollars washing a tank top and joggers.
It had taken the entire day, and I did nothing but watch them spin in the machines.
With that memory permanently etched into my brain, I never wanted to go there again. Even if I ended up throwing out the clothes after the trip. I couldn’t stand it. I was never going to be able to keep them, anyway.
Knowing that laundry would be in my home when I moved made me so giddy that I was sure I no longer needed therapy. (Nice try, self, but you’re going on a decade. Aim for two.)
Honestly, it still makes me kinda want to piss myself with joy and relief.
No more “laundry” in the way I’d been doing for the past several years meant no more piles of it in my room or by my front door.
No more laundry meant I didn’t have to plan it with other people if they wanted to do laundry with me, and I’d never have to ask a friend or family member if I could use their machines again.
No more laundry meant I had successfully realized I had the means to move into a nicer place and that I didn’t have to relive that memory in that same space.
And no more laundry meant “laundry” didn’t need to have the same meaning anymore.
“Laundry” is me in my own apartment, in my own safe space, entirely free of the overwhelm that had plagued me.
During my therapy sessions in the early weeks after the assault, Old Laundry was all I could talk about.
Not the trip to the ER when I decided I was going to report it, not the rape kit I completed or the two-hour retelling of what happened, not the trip to the abortion clinic surrounded by protestors that I needed care from after my (six) positive pregnancy tests, and not how I was feeling about the assault.
Just: My house is full of laundry, and it’s everywhere, and it’s killing me.
When I move this weekend, I am going to wash my clothes.
I will dry them next—some inside the machine and some outside on my balcony.
Then I will put them away, and that lack of control I had when I needed control desperately will no longer be an issue.
New Laundry will not fix, save, or change what happened.
But New Laundry isn’t going to hurt it.
I was so tired of doing laundry.
I was tired as I watched my tank top and joggers spin around in soapy water for the eighth time in one day.
I was tired as I realized I could do anything I wanted when I drove into town, but I still couldn’t do my laundry there.
No more laundry.
There is nothing about my current situation that is easy. There is nothing that is going to allow me to bury my emotions, panic attacks, and feelings of helplessness. Nothing will make me feel 100% safe, not even in my new place.
But I will continue to try to live the way I want every day.
Because even if it’s hard and exhausting and I’ve taken more work breaks than I’ve wanted to, at least I can wash my clothes at home.