I’ve been doing
some cleaning and I’ve noticed that I have an excessive collection of this and
that (read: Giant Book of Word Games 4, 8, 1, 19, and 27, my favorite shirt
from the 5th grade, the box that the bracelet Charles game me 8
years ago came in, and a handful of unopened bills). My reluctance to discard those ostensibly useless
objects makes me think that I may have a wee bit of a problem with
hoarding.
Looking at what
seemed to be the last 10 years of my life spread all over my closet floor, I
thought, “Why on earth did I hold on to these?”
I’m pretty certain that I had good, valid, and compelling reasons at the
time, but sitting there surrounded by my “collection”, my mind is drawing a
blank.
I rummaged a bit
more and found a bunch of journals (circa 1996-2006) wrapped in an old shirt
that was most likely outdated since before I hit puberty, at the bottom of a
box labeled Christmas lights. Completely abandoning our immediate need for
closet space, I sat down to read the entries and came to the conclusion that,
yes, a person can indeed go through second-hand embarrassment for herself. And, yes, it was that mortifying. It got me thinking about how I tend to “keep”
things not just physically, but emotionally as well.
I’ve been going
around hauling hurt and anger that came from things that happened months
ago. Maybe I suffer from an inability to
process emotions, or maybe I can’t get over them as quickly as I should because
the person that hurt me is someone I didn’t believe could. Either way, I feel like an emotional hoarder clinging
on to memories and feelings that I should have let go of.
But letting go
is hard, especially since there’s a part of me that stupidly and genuinely
believes that there are “dead” relationships that can spring back to life. It reminds me of a friend’s Facebook status:
“Before you give
up, think of the reasons why you held on so long.”
I guess I’m
still holding on to the good memories:
lovely words spoken at the time I needed it the most, mere presence that
I took in as sunshine during my dark hours, laughter until my face felt like it
was going to crack, food like there’s no tomorrow, and drinks like there’s no
such thing as hangovers … the list could go on. And even with the knowledge that letting
those memories reside in my head and in my heart goes hand in hand with
remembering the hurt, I still keep hoarding.
So now, I’m
doing some cleaning. I will no longer
hoard this way because I realize it will never fill the void. It’s like holding a key to my own prison cell
and I’m not even using it to get out. I
will no longer be afraid that nothing else will come to occupy that space
because I trust that the universe has got me.
Yep. The universe has my back =)
