Off and on for a while, I have participated in Mama Kat's (World Famous) Writer's Workshop. What better way to address the post-less blog situation?
Share one of your favorite things:
Last fall, I moved out of my old place, which I once fondly referred to as "the Garaje Mahal" into my new yellow apartment by the beach. My friend, J, moved out, too.
On October first, we, along with friends and family, packed up both my stuff and her stuff and moved things to the yellow apartment, a storage area, and J's sister's house. It sucked.
I have always been a restless spirit, somebody who moves frequently and with great joy. Hence, I tend to keep my possessions minimal. But I had been in my last place for 5 years and had accummulated more. J had been there 15 years. She had subsequently more.
Throughout the month of October, the two of us made multiple trips to the Goodwill, letting go of things that we thought we wanted enough to pack them up and take them with us. I went through a phase were I felt rather negatively about "stuff". I went on a vision quest of sorts to get rid of all the "stuff". (I kind of still am, but less emotionally)
I had an interesting conversation with another friend, who was lending me her truck to take a dresser to the Goodwill. She was concerned that I was getting rid of a piece of furniture that used to belong to my grandfather. "It's a family hierloom," she said. "You can't get rid of it!"
But it wasn't a family hierloom. It was a dresser that he had picked up at a yard sale at some point. It's funny, how we can attach feelings or stories to things, and grow sentimental, whether those stories are true or fabricated. Maybe it takes something like a move under poor circumstances to make us rethink our attachments to those things. Maybe every once in a while, we need to get rid of those stories we've been telling ourselves over and over again. Maybe it's good to rewrite our stories and our lives. To prune back the briars in order to let the roses flourish.
J let go of a life that didn't work anymore in order to pursue the promise of something better.
I let go of my grandfather's dresser. But I kept something better.
(apologies for the crooked picture!)
2 comments:
Blog now, sleep later?
Yea I get that. When my grandmother moved into a nursing home I got things out of the house before the estate sale that I wanted to keep for sentimental reasons. Furniture, some of it handmade. I went in after the fact and took stuff that nobody else wanted.
Then when I had to get rid of some of it everybody else had their hands out wanting all of the stuff that I got for sentimental reasons. geez.
I like your perspective on keeping "stuff". I am slowly working on not hanging on to so many things. I recently just went through a drawer of greeting cards that I had been given over the years. Yes. Greeting cards. For some reason, I felt when I got them that I should throw them away. After a while, the drawer was so full that nothing else could fit in it and I never went back to look at those cards. It was good to finally get it cleaned out.
That painting is a very special item to have from your grandpa. What a nice way to remember him every day.
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