My good friend Laura is in the process of moving back to Santa Barbara, and today, I helped her move “the big stuff” to her storage locker.
I actually think the process of what I’m doing personally right now is very similar — I’m going through the old internal boxes and sorting out what I want to keep enough to cart it with me, and what I’m ready to let go of.
I’m a chronic “But I might NEED that!” type of person. According to my Beloved, this is probably part of where I fall on the Enneagram, as an “8″ — or perhaps, it’s the influence of my Dust-Bowl Depression surviving mother, who always had that little bit of string or ribbon that was perfect for tying up this box — I suppose it doesn’t matter where it came from, really — suffice it to say that the “letting go” part of the process has never been that natural to me.
It doesn’t help that I’ve been proven completely “right” about keeping something “just in case” about a million and a half times. When my Beloved asks me if we still have that thing that she was certain we should get rid of in the last garage sale, because she really needs just such a thing, and we DO still have it, because I got stubborn about it . . . . I try not to gloat.
On the other hand, there have been many times when she’s been proven utterly “right” as well — at those times, when I’m bitching about “Where did all this stuff come from?” because we have to move it, or I finally feel the relief of something that’s no longer just taking up space in the basement, she seems not to gloat, either.
Cleaning out the Internal Closet is, for me, just as dicey, but for today, I’m feeling much more willing to say: “That thing? It never worked. I’m getting rid of it.