Letting Go.
Spring cleaning is a misnomer. In our house, for some reason, it’s always in summer. Remember last summer?
The impetus this time is the impending (we hope) renovation of our home. The architect was through last week to look around and take some measurements. We had to clean up before the visit - the mess on the third floor was so bad that no one could get from one side to the other without effort. So, it was time.
Most of the stuff on the third floor migrated there from other rooms in the house. It’s the stuff that we can’t seem to part with… You know, old yearbooks, notes from seminars and classes, artwork from the girls, trip mementoes stashed into shoeboxes…
It was tough to throw a lot of it out, but it needed to go. It was merely taking up space.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it was so hard to toss many of the things out - train tickets from my trip to Rome, postcards from the UK, my "Bon Voyage" banner from my year abroad in college. What is it about that stuff that makes it nearly impossible to get rid of?
And then it dawned on me: I was attaching the thing with the event, as though the two were not separable. I thought that somehow throwing away the thing meant that I was letting go of the event. You know, as if when I toss away my train ticket, it’s like the trip never happened. The same with the art from the girls. I believe that I was frightened to throw any of them away (and you should know that Katie is quite the prolific artist!!) because it felt like throwing their childhoods away.
What I needed to come to terms with is that the thing may be a remembrance of the event, but letting go of the thing didn’t wipe out the event. I did do all of those things. I saw all of those places. I met all of those people. My kids were little, and yes, it feels like they are growing up far too fast, but each day brings something new. I don’t have to keep everything that my girls ever drew or keep the stubs to each fair or festival that they attended to remember that they did those things.
Some day I will be old. Some day my memory will not be as good as it used to be (hell, that day is here now). Some day I will not remember every detail of my life, and that of my children, no matter how much I want to. But hanging onto things won’t change that.
So, Chris and I loaded some things up into bags - some for the Salvation Army, some for the garbage can - and hauled them out of the house. There is much more room up there now - room to make new memories.