Like a lot of people are doing, I am using this extra time at home to finally get to some things around the house that have been lingering and unattended. Last weekend, I decided that I would look inside some of the boxes in my garage to see what I might be able to purge. In order not to feel overwhelmed by the volume of boxes, I committed to only looking through any boxes that were marked Christmas. There were about 10 boxes, a mix of my stuff and my mom’s. Based on the counsel of Marie Kondo and Gretchen Rubin, I decided I would only keep what I loved and knew I would use in the future.
My mother loved Christmas and I have a few boxes of her Christmas decorations that I have held on to for sentimental reasons. She’s been gone for 20 years, so anything I have of hers is precious to me. Some of them are handmade by her - she was so crafty! One of my favorite parts of Christmas is putting out decorations of hers because it makes me feel connected to her in a small way. I have never been able to use it all - she had a lot - but I love having it.
After I had culled down some of my own memorabilia, I opened a box marked Diane’s ornaments and prepared to go down memory lane. Instead, I found a box full of empty boxes. This box was full of the empty boxes that should have held ornaments, but the ornaments were not there.
At first I was sad, but then, I burst out laughing when I realized how many times I have moved that box with me over the last 20 years. That empty box has moved with at least 7 times and over 1500 miles. Over the years, I assumed I knew what was in there and had lugged it with me thinking “I’ll use these things in the next house...”, and then, when the next year came, I didn’t and opted for some things out of another box.
By looking in the box, I found out the truth of what I had been carrying, and by getting rid of this empty box, I made room in my garage for how I wanted to use it.
It felt like a perfect metaphor for a lot of other areas of my life - how many times have I hauled around something with me for years without wanting to address it or look at it? How much freer could I be if I just went and looked in the "boxes" I have to find out what's in there and see if I can free up that space for how I really want to use it. Or as a friend of mine often reminds me, "How free do you want to be?"
The only way to get truly free is to deal with these empty boxes.
Commentaires