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You never really know how much you’re holding until you start letting it go.

 

This started as a PURGE day:
count heads,
find them all a hat.
Make sure the winter coats are mended
and shoes don’t pinch the toe.

Rifle through the bookshelves,
scoop out under beds,
clear the counter of debris,
and toss or give or mend.

But when the job started getting too arduous for good humor to bear
and crabby came upon me like soap scum in a too-cool bath,
clinging to me, no matter which way I waded,
I just stopped and stood,

staring at all the STUFF.

My first reaction was one of more overwhelm –

how do I get through this???

 

and then I realized I wasn’t talking about the things that were physically in front of me, for they’re just a symptom. There are too many unseen things I hang on to, every day.

 

how do I get through this???

 

Some things I save are way too big:
a size of the mind I don’t care to fill.
Some are too small
and I outgrew them long ago.
The things that really bother me
are the ones I keep out of fear:
“I don’t need it, I don’t want it, but if I lose it, could I replace it? I mean, what if?! What if I really DO need it?”
or the things I keep out of habit;
“This is no longer useful to me, but I’ve had it so long, how could I keep something different in it’s place?”

 

These things don’t take up physical space, so perhaps we think there’s no real benefit in removing them. Our minds and hearts are infinite, right? Like the CLOUD, they can take the storage. No big deal.

 

But just like cleaning out a closet
and dusting off it’s shelf
we make room for ourselves

by letting go;

and by letting go,
we can suffuse by choice
the areas that chance had falsely filled.

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