Letting Go

In the 1970s my mother sold Avon.  I have two of her suitcases and we use them for travelling.  I love the history of this bag, the bright, unique colors, and the size that's just perfect for an overnight stay.

This week I noticed that the zipper has torn.  It's possible I could find somehow to repair it, but it would be very difficult.  I'm going to have to let it go.

Our home is full; over full of memories and items that hold them.  I tend to forget, so I love having visual reminders of people and places in the past.  The problem is that the longer I live, the more memories and less space we have.

I could blame Adam and his own tendency to keep anything that has sentimental value, but frankly, I'm just as bad, if not worse.

Here's another example:

This spiral belonged to my maternal great-grandmother.  Inside are craft ideas from the 1950s and 1960s.  I've had this at least 10 years and have never even flipped through it all, much less made any of the crafts.  Just a minute ago I had a moment of silence for my great grandmother and placed this reverently in the recycling bin.

Here are Paul's "skeleton pants" with a skull on the back pocket.  He loves those pants, but the snap is now broken and the waist can't go around his waist.  They are too small, broken, and have holes in both knees.  I know that no one will ever wear them again.  We won't keep them and then thank ourselves later for keeping these broken pants.  Yet I struggle with letting them go.  They are so small and he is growing bigger every day.

Now that our floors are finished, we can start putting the house back together.  Our contractor mentioned to me that it looked like we had five houses worth of stuff in our one house.  In a way, he's right.  When my great grandmother passed away, we obtained some of her stuff.  A friend at church gave some of his stuff to us before he passed away.  I was in charge of my grandfather's estate sale when he moved to a retirement home, so of course I took lots of his stuff home as well.  Another dear elderly friend gave us stuff.  There's stuff from Adam's godparents, stuff from garage sales, and stuff that originated with us.  Every time Claire makes a craft, she insists that I keep it as a treasured possession, even the Mason jar with a feather glued in it.

We are living in a house of memories and we are getting buried alive.  So this week I have devoted my free time to learning to let go.  If there is value in every object, there isn't value in any of them.