In 1992, my beloved and I took a trip. We were gone for 7 months travelling north to Yukon and Alaska then down the western coast to California. We flew to Hawaii, then Australia, then New Zealand, then Fiji and then returned to California where we picked up our vehicle and drove home following ‘Route 66’. We took a lot of pictures. He took photographs and I took slides. In the years after that we traveled to Britain, to Germany and Austria, to Israel. I had a lot of slides! I have not looked at those slides for at least 18 years. But every move I made I carried my huge box of slides with me. Slides and projectors are old technology now. I had three slide projectors in the basement and not one of them worked.
I have been inching towards a decision for two years now. This week I did it. I bagged up all those slides and threw them out. Even as I write that it cramps my heart a bit. So many wonderful memories held in those photos now consigned to the landfill. I do, of course still have albums with Carl’s photographs so not all is lost, but I did decide to toss the slides that I had taken, reserving a few as mementos of happy, lovely days gone by.
It is a funny feeling, this attachment to things. The slides did not hold my memories, my mind holds my memories, but they held a piece of me that I found hard to let go of… a touchstone, a link to the past, a reminder of happy days, and, even though I didn’t ever look at them, they were there, taking up space, collecting dust and both comforting and irritating me every time I walked by the box in the basement.
Given that I have no offspring I knew that I had no one to pass those pictures on to and, seriously, who ever wants to looks at pictures of someone else’s trip? As I made the decision and bagged them up and then put them in the bin at the landfill there was a peculiar sense of liberation. ‘Stuff’ can become a burden, a weight, a shackle. Having too much stuff can become oppressive.
I confess it has been a mingling of regret and liberation and I have not found the exercise to be clearly one or the other. I do have regrets about letting them go and I do have liberation when I go to the basement and see less clutter, less stuff.
I do not find it easy to let go of things. But I also know, as we embark on a new year that I want to feel less encumbered and so some things must go, even with regret, to provide some liberation. I live with the mixed feelings.
Happy New Year!
Nancy, you touched on a subject that we all deal with, both as we do it and in the aftermath. Regret should not overshadow liberty nor liberty reign over regret. This conflict is within us all and sometimes we win a little, sometimes we lose a little but so long as we do something we will always ultimately feel better. As Dr. Phil says” we do what we know and when we know better, we do better”. Therefore as long as we are always learning, we will always do better. That is how I hope to pattern my life.
Oh Nancy Joyce, I too use a large and a purse size calendar. I just moved a physio appt so I can spend the morning with a new friend Who will be lost too soon. AND I did, with much talking to myself, toss boxes of slides. I admit I did save a couple including our dear Kathryn in Nicaragua. Have a fine day‼️