I’m cleaning out my storage unit and it’s epic. I found things I’ve had since the fifth grade! Really?! Do I ever throw anything away? When we moved out of our house in 2008, we packed everything into storage thinking we’d be back in a year to get it. It took six. Still, it all came with me for another two moves until finally I just couldn’t take it anymore. Going through it now, I wonder why I saved half the stuff I did. It makes me think about all the things we mindlessly tuck away instead of making the decision to move on from them, or more rightly, move on from that time in our life. Especially the really good times in our life. I decided this was it, it’s now or never, either I am going to use it or I’m going to get rid of it.

For me, it wasn’t just about just getting rid of things, it’s about coming to terms with the meaning behind those possessions, and the memories they carry.  Going through everything means confronting the past and making a lot of hard decisions about what no longer has any value for me. It’s deciding who I really am, who I want to become, and what I am willing to let go of in order to become that person. I began with over one hundred boxes and I’m down to eight. Once I really looked I found most of these possessions didn’t hold the same meaning for me. I had already moved on, it was all my stuff that stayed stuck in boxes. Sort of like the genie in the bottle, but what’s trapped in all that stuff is the person I really want to be. Our lives are not museums, or a catalog of every single moment. In fact my life boiled down to about three or four major piles. A ton of pictures, a ton of writing, and some very meaningful and sentimental items that really run the gambit. When I released the things that weren’t meaningful or necessary anymore, it created the space to let other parts of myself find expression. The importance of these things was their ability to create a connection to the person I wanted to be, the feelings I wanted to fill my life with, not the object itself.

The rest of my stuff was just filler. There are so many beautiful things in the world, but we can’t possibly possess them all. We can pick the few things that speak to our soul, really live with those things and who they urge us to become. In going through all my things it was obvious what no longer suited me, they had zero energy. These are the things that never made it off the storage sight. Right there I boxed and bagged, donated or tossed. The final twenty-five boxes made it home for a more thorough look through, and then there were eight. That’s all I took with me from what I’ve been dragging around with me for over a decade. Pause for a deep breath. How does it feel? Like whatever invisible weight that had me down was magically and instantly lifted. I felt lighter and unencumbered, like I just lost a hundred pounds of emotional baggage.

The big surprise was that it gave me more of the self I’d been looking for while collecting all that stuff. Not the self that needs and wants, but the self that knows and appreciates what’s most valuable. The essential, uncluttered, uncrowded, unconvoluted me. Letting go of what no longer suited me made room for the new and unexpected to arrive. I realized what I wanted from all of this stuff was to have a clearer definition of who I am, but it took letting go of all the unnecessary stuff to find it. Who we are isn’t something we can look at or display or box up. It’s what shines through when all the non-essentials are discarded. Out of this whole process the one piece I really want to hold onto is the piece I can’t really touch.

If I’d have known how good it was going to feel I would have done it sooner. Or maybe timing is everything and this is exactly how it was suppose to happen.

Here’s to keeping only what really speaks to you, and letting the real you shine. 

kb