So, out with the old. Yesterday M and I worked for hours on our sanford and son garage. There were/are boxes that need to make it inside the house, but I have enjoyed the simplicity. So, in a million degree heat we started tearing open boxes and totes. We had a donate, trash, and inside pile. I found myself separating from a lot of stuff from my past, a china doll my mom gave me, another doll she got me on one of her vacations, and various other things. I just didn't have any real emotion when I looked at them. It didn't make me feel closer to her. I had emotion attached to the memory of the items which does make it difficult to let go. One item included a side table that was hers and that I have used on and off over the past ten years, however, it was in the garage and there is no room at all for it in the house. It would serve no purpose. If hanging on to a bunch of crap that clutters my garage could make me feel my mothers spirit, I'd have it all out in shrine form in my living room. "Sorry kids, no room for your toys, I have this old troll doll and broken jewelry box and we are going to have a seance in hopes we see my moms ghost, is that cool with everybody?"
I think my biggest gifts, aside from memories, are my pictures, and I only need one maybe two out of her. Isn't it odd that after someone dies, we rush out and print up pictures and buy ten frames and put them everywhere. I went through that right after she passed, but then I relapsed into anger and took them all down. Now I'm at a place that sometimes forgets I'm motherless, but its not really "forgetting", its just acceptance, it is who I am, a motherless daughter. On that note, she left me in the arms of women who would give up a limb to be my mother. She also gave me the gift of hope and faith. I must have said it a million times that if I don't resolve to having faith, then what is the point of any of this? Why get married? Why procreate? So we can end up in nailed coffins and become a pile of dust? How cruel can one God be to let us end up that way, instead of in eternity with the people we love? Why become a mom at all, if all I'm going to do is leave them in their grief and hurt? Why become a mom? It is because I know they are my children forever.
See how cathartic it is to get rid of old junk? Who knew! It is so liberating! I have extra room to breathe and with less "stuff" leaves more room for reflection. Don't get me wrong, I still have work to do, but it was a huge piece of progress we made!
