Tonight it was time. Time to dive into the boxes of Memorabilia. Tubs of memories. Of report cards. Yearbooks. My ASB Gavel. My Girl Scout sash. Reports. Essays. Childhood art. A letter to a high school crush declaring myself - thankfully never sent! Letters to and from me. Email from friends I'd printed out. Cards. Remember when people sent cards? 23 years of cards from my friend Beth. Such a gift of love. And almost all of it is heading to the recycling bin in the morning or the shredder (fear not dear friends- all correspondence will be shredded!). In the genius book, 'The Magic Art of Tidying Up', the author talks about how these items have served their purpose and holding on to them, keeps us from being present, from embodying who we are and having space for who we are here to truly be. I did keep my baby book, a few letters, notes from my mom and dad, one or two pieces of childhood art. The ones that made me smile. That brought me joy. And the rest. Well the rest- its time for it to move on. To take on new energy, as new things. I've carried those tubs with me for 20 years and its time to lighten the load. I can't tell you how delicious it felt to lift one tub up, filled 1/50th of the way! my back, my heart felt it all. So here are to those memories who helped me become who I am today and here's to the space for the new. Some of the hardest things to release? My writing- some college essays I wrote on racism, culture. On the bra- when it's evolution was based on technology (new fabrics etc) versus cultural (madonna, trends). A birthday card my dad sent me from our Dog that's passed on- with cute little dog print stamps. These are still in a pile...I need another night with them and we will see what tomorrow brings!
Tomorrow: photos. egads.
