Snapshots

I have a lot of stuff. I mean, there is the term pack rat, but I think I might need to redefine terms because I am a hoarder, I mean, I hold onto things and I don't even know I HAVE them. Once when I was looking for a pair of shoes I stumbled across a pair of Nikes and didn't think they were mine--that's how long it had been since I saw them. I didn't even remember OWNING them!! I have to admit that was a pretty hillarious moment to me. And sadly no one was around to witness it. "Whose shoes are these? They aren't mine. Oh....wait.....HAHAHAHA!" *Sigh*




I moved recently and it was a pretty quick move so rather than sort through and organize my barrels of stuff, everything was just thrown in garbage bags to be dealt with at a later date. (Gotta love Mother, the way I learned to clean was to throw things in bags to deal with at a later time. Hey, it made the room look clean and then I had a bag full of treasures to discover later!) So today, I opened up a bag of.....well, STUFF and found all these old pictures and can I just say that I love, love, love pictures. There really is something about how a tiny scrap of paper can take you back to another time, where you were another person, feeling entirely different things. I found a love letter in that box from 10 years ago!! Was I consciously holding onto it? Absolutely not, but the fact remains it lay among the things I was holding onto. That kind of blew me away. There were pictures of me from high school prom and pictures from the college choir field trip and so many pictures of people I hardly remember let alone still talk to. There was something really comforting in all of that.



In those moments, in those times where everything that was happening right then, with all the people that painted the background with their smiles seemed like the most important, the only possible reality I could know or want were all vague memories of a girl I remember once being. And it sort of flooded me like the scattered photos on my bed that like those photos before me, the ones of today will be blurred memories in the years to come. And how humbling to realize the significant moments I encounter at present may find their way to a shoebox at the bottom of a garbage bag when enough time has passed.



Wow. What seems to be today may not be all there is in store. So many photos lie in store for us.



I found myself slightly torn over whether to keep the loot. But I realized I would feel much more liberated if I released all those past things that no longer play a role or even a memory in who I am now. My move opened my eyes to the fact that many of my things are not treasures but a burden. I don't know how it happened but rather than holding on to the things, the stuff had suddenly held me captive and it made me realize how much more I like the freedom in the stars than the twinkle in my closet. Oh, there are lots of things I love and will hold onto. My vintage hats, my designer dresses, my grandmother's jewelry. But so much of what I have are things I'm not even sure why I have, why I'm keeping, why I continue to cart it with me, year after year, thinking there will come a day when I'll be glad I lugged it with me all those years.



Or.....



I can release it. Do you know how freeing it is to let go of something, even something you think you desperately want? Freeing yourself from the bonds of something you genuinely don't need is unbelievably empowering. I can bless someone else with it. I can forgive myself for wasting money on it. I can love the person who gave it to me and not need to keep it. And maybe my journey will feel a little lighter as I take with me only the things I love and not the things I've forgotten about.



What would it feel like if the things we chose to surround ourselves with, the people we invested our time in were only things that brought us great joy?



Can you imagine what a changed life we would have?



I've been finding that my happiest times as of late are times I am spending alone. Somehow this social butterfly has become a bit of an introvert. And somewhere buried under all the stuff are fragments of a girl who would never let herself see the simplicity that lay behind all the things around her.



*Click*