"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles."
-C. JoyBell C.
i've been on a cleaning streak lately. i read that book...The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up... by Marie Kondo. it was an ok book and kind of funny at times. it did made me think a little differently about my possessions. i'm not a cluttery person. i'm actually super organized...a place for everything. i wasn't always that way, i became that way while living in our very tiny first house with four little kids. our days were messy and chaotic, but every night it all got cleaned up and tucked away where it belonged. that nightly ritual brought me great calm after an exhausting day and it's something i've continued to do, even though we now have a much bigger house with actual closets, so there is much more space to tuck everything away. some of it is really tucked deeply away. and has been since we moved here 10 years ago. so i figure, if it's been in a box for 10 years and i haven't taken it out, do i really need it? probably not.
so, i have donated a good portion of it. treasures for others to discover. i have some really nice vintage things i have collected over the years. i have always tried to purchase only things that i will actually use, but somehow there were things that wound up in a box in a closet. things i no longer wanted but wasn't ready to let go of, things i had a plan for that never quite worked out or things that were "too special" to use. you know what i mean right? i am going to "release" those things, like the pretty mirror above. you can find it here if you like it. i have a whole box of similar treasures waiting to be photographed. waiting to be loved by someone else.
and you know...it feels good. i feel lighter somehow. i like to see empty spaces on my shelves and only dust under the bed. there is something about letting go of it that just feels so...i don't even know...freeing maybe. and while i still have a lot of shelves to go, it feels like a good start. i hope to be sending some good treasures out into the world in the months to come. oh, and the life changing book...in the true spirit of tidying up, i passed it on to my mother.
A lovely read, Vicki and I completely resonate with your words. I am at the 'thinking' stage, unlike you who is at the acting stage. Sometimes going through such things after so much time gone can drag up the past, and you feel like you don't want to think about the attachments to the material object, so you leave it there, thinking it might magically evaporate..... :) x
ReplyDeletethank you...i agree about the "attachments"...some things have definitely been more difficult to sort through. i tend to leave it around on my table for a few days to see if i am ready to let go of it. i am finding that anything with an an emotional attachment is much harder to release and some of it has gone back to the closet for "later" : )
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