My mother surprised me on the phone the other day by telling me she was going to go through her house and do some purging. They were the sweetest words I’d ever heard her utter!
Don’t get me wrong, I adore my mother. I know who she is, faults & all, and have a huge amount of respect & pride in who she is and what she does. I run her business and together we’re making changes in the lives of many, many mothers & babies. We are best friends who talk daily about business, family, everything (except my dating life, she’s adamant she doesn’t want to know about that!)
But she’s got a little quirk that has driven me mad… like… forever. She just can’t let things go. Not like a point.. she can usually let a subject drop and rarely brings up old baggage unless it’s truly applicable to the conversation. What she can’t let go is that “thing” she’s keeping because she might need it. That article of clothing because she might lose the weight to fit into it. The exercise equipment she’ll start using one day, she assures me.
I mean she has a ginormous closet which is double rowed full of clothing. AND two dressers! PLUS four, count ’em four (!) hanging shoe trees, one for each of her closet doors. I’ve been telling her for years that if you by some chance lose the weight to fit these clothes, they’d look sooo bad because they were made in the 90’s!!
And doesn’t every woman deserve to buy a new wardrobe when she loses weight!
At the root of this is her terror of making the “wrong” decision. It’s easier to just avoid that and NOT decide over the little things. But I think she’s finally realized that its time to let go of some of those little things, cuz they have accumulated! Projects she’s keeping for no reason, other than an inability to admit she’ll never get to them. Stuff like that.
She’s remembering all the collected “crap” she had to go through when my Great Uncle Dave passed away. And she’s remembering all the “crap” her Cousin Nancy had to deal with before she moved to her retirement house in Georgia. Its a symptom of settling in and getting comfortable and keeping stuff “just in case”.
I myself am going through a little bit of that. When the ex moved out I expected him to take half of what was joint property and all of what was his before the divorce. Yet, did that happen? No. In a way I was pleased, now I didn’t need to replace a lot of what he took. But in a way I was pissed, ‘cuz I’m NOT a storage facility.
So I decided to have a Divorce Sale. I’m going to go through my stuff and ask myself if I really need it. If I don’t I’m going to add it to the sale. If its joint, then I’ll split the money. If it’s his then I’ll take a commission for selling it for him. Either way.. I’m not going to have extra “crap” cluttering up my house.
Perhaps my mother’s purge will add to the whole selection of the damn thing! Because we must let go of our clutter… be it stuff or prejudices, hang-ups or bitterness, unrealistic fantasies and whatever else might hold us back.
How else can we make room for opportunity, new people, adventure and growth.
Uh.. and new boots. Oh and new shirts that make me look hot. Plus that new album by Linkin Park. Dammit.. how soon is Christmas?