"Wooooah" you might be saying, tossing your *honey blonde* hair from your face incredulously (whoever you are, insert appropriate hair color) "Why the heck have you revived this moderately blasé blog, then, if you are no longer bound by duty to your GPA to do so?"
Because I have just had the most UNBELIEVABLE BREAKTHROUGH in my life as a consumer (bet you never thought you'd read that anywhere) and as a human who used to be very attached to physical mementos of the past. This morning my mother and I returned to Glasgow after the most unbelievable 36 hr cleaning extravaganza of my life thus far (here might be another place for you to incredulously toss your hair).
This extravaganza took place at our family farm in Opheim, which, albeit some furniture and art reshuffling and stealing away to Glasgow, has largely remained untouched since my parents half (and I entirely) moved to Glasgow 7 years ago. For 7 years, my room has not been touched or changed in any way, the mess on my dresser likely the mess that I left it in when my Dad and I moved our clothes into our new house by the high school all those years ago. My closet a disaster of old costumes, toys exploding from my primary colored rolling organizer and tall white plastic shelves. Paper scraps of playtime, schooltime, and sports littered everything and everywhere. Tiny plastic barbie shoes (children's toys are an ecological nightmare, wowza) and more working electronics than you would expect (I was always a child who took impeccable care of all of my things, to the point of vicious distrust of even my closest friends [*insert profuse apology to Haylee R.*])
My choice to not touch any of these things, rather unsurprisingly, was a result of my fear of letting go of the past. Letting go of my old school, my childhood, my memories, my old self, and any remaining physical connection I had of my brother. I was afraid of many of these things and the feelings they gave me. So my closet largely marinated for the better part of a decade. But during this time, I grew up a lot, and this weekend, evidently, I realized that I was finally emotionally prepared to go through these things. This was a huge deal for me, my Dad really could not believe it (you may take this time to imagine his incredulous hair toss).
And it turns out I was so prepared that it was EASY. EASY I TELL YOU. I could finally distinguish things that had enough of a emotional attachment to keep and things that I had no use for and didn't care enough about to keep to myself any longer. The back of our pickup is FULL of 3 huge boxes and a large plastic bag of stuffed animals, books, clothes, costumes, games, crafts, a really cool model rocket (now at a Soroptomist store near you), and others. The emotional distance I had taken (thank you parents for being patient enough to allow me all this time) finally made it clear to me what was important to have around, which really isn't a whole lot, and what would be better to make someone else happy. And what was okay to just toss; I tossed A LOT. Which is another big shocker, but was made possible by emotional distancing and allowing oneself to finally figure out the weight I wanted to allow to my physical possessions.
I cleared out that whole big white plastic organizer (COMPLETELY) and now my Mom is going to use it in Glasgow to file stuff. And we also went through all the cute little rubber boots and cowboy showmanship boots that have been sitting in the garage for even longer than my room has been sitting idle. So now my Dad has a place to throw his numerous collection field samples that used to sit on Mom's work bench (and drive her crazy). We also threw away a whole bed (woohoo!) and still had time to watch a couple episodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt together.
I am a happy human.
What physical possessions do you have around you that are weighing you down? Making you feel guilty? Taking up room so you can't do all the things that you want to? Chances are you have much much more than you can ever use. What is your equivalent of my emotionally charged childhood room?
And now... Pictures!
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| So many cute 4H boots! |
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| Goodbye cute roller-skates! |
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| Less than half of the donate pile! |
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| All empty and ready for Mom to use! |
If you go through stuff you also find some really sweet finds! I found a ton of stickers (I'm still a child at heart) that I will now be sprinkling on ever letter that I write to anyone in the foreseeable future. Also, I got this really cute picture with my Mom.
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| I am wearing a paper hat that I made in 6th grade for an Egypt Project on Nefirtiti and a Momma wears a felt three pointed colonial hat that was a Halloween costume worm by Erik waaayyyy back in the day. |
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| And here is a cute kitty! Happy (developing) Minimalism |
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