This weekend was very fun for me. You see, I love to organize. My husband had some boxes and plastic bins they were throwing out at the office. He brought them home for me and said, “I figured you would want these”. Boy, was he right! I was so excited to think of the possibility of better organizing what we already had. Here’s the problem, though, I love to hang on to memories. We moved a lot as I was growing up so holding on to things made me feel I was still apart of the state we just came from. It all started with a pencil collection. My Sunday School teachers would give me pencils as a prize for memorizing Bible verses. The same year, my teacher at school gave out pencils to the top students. Right about this time we had to move, so the pencils never were sharpened and my collection began. I received many pencils throughout the years and also bought pencils to add to the collection on special trips and vacations. It was to the point of about 150 pencils. My pencil collection has stayed with me even to this day.
So, you see, this idea of collecting and keeping memories has been an issue as our family has continued to grow and my children are getting older. I tend to hold on to more and more. I am running out of room. I mean, there was even a TV episode of “Hoarders” where the lady had too much stuff, but she was completely organized about it all. I was sadly impressed with her skills! Anyway, it was time to organize yesterday, so the entire family got involved.
We have a closet under our stairs in the basement where all the memory boxes are kept. I must confess I had the most. The kids each had one, Brian had three and I had seven or eight. It was very lopsided, I’m afraid. What was sad, too, was many of the things I thought would be important to the kids were not. They threw away a lot of things. My daughter pulled out one of her favorite toys from when she was little and informed me she was ready to get rid of it. She wanted to give it to her little cousin. I asked if she was sure and she said, “Yes, I enjoyed it so much that I want him to enjoy it, too. It’s better than just sitting in this box.”
And then the child shall lead them.
Suddenly my three boxes of books from my English degree didn’t mean anything. Seriously, when will I have time to read Shakespeare again in the next ten years? At that point, I can go to the library. My fake spiders didn’t need to stay in the bottom of the fourth box. My son would have better use for them. The art supplies I got in fifth grade? Yep, I still had it all! My daughter happily took those off my hands! I gave her permission to try it out and then throw away what she didn’t want. The devotion book I used as a teen? My other daughter got that one. It was a bit bittersweet to let go of my memories until I realized by letting go I was allowing new memories to be created. My son tried scaring us with the spiders! My daughter wants to paint with me. She never knew I used to paint when I was younger. The books I read when I was younger were passed on for the girls to read.
Then the box of pencils looked at me. It was in the same shoe box I carefully wrapped one year and decorated. It still had the cheap stickers on it; although, it was a little smashed in at places. I carefully opened the box as I did so often as a child. The pencils didn’t call to me as they used to, but some of them brought back fond memories. I looked them over one last time and told the kids the pencils needed to go upstairs with the school supplies. It was time they were used. They sorted through some of the fun ones, claimed dibs on their favorites and then put the rest where they belonged.
It was time for bed and we were all exhausted. The closet had been cleaned. The game closet had been cleaned and organized, too. I couldn’t go to bed, though, as I was too excited. It was time to move on to another area that was driving me crazy…my sewing supplies. I got of out bed while everyone else was sleeping and went through my craft table area. I found a receipt from 1993! Seriously, Susan? Let me just say, I filled another trash bag of stuff. Stuff…that’s all it was, that’s all it is and all it will ever be. Nothing wrong with it, but it is what it is. I didn’t need more stuff sitting in boxes and bins. The problem I have with stuff, though, is that I tend to set goals and if the stuff stays there it means there are projects that have yet to be completed. That’s when I feel bogged down. I enslave myself to projects I feel should be completed.
Where am I going with all of this “stuff”? Well, I realized the better way to give more time to God is to rid myself of anything keeping me from God. To me, this is freeing myself from the expectations of completing the 100th project of the year. So, clearing out clutter was freeing for me yesterday. Letting go of memories was freeing. Allowing my children to throw things away that I had meticulously saved for them was EXTREMELY hard, but I felt God check me. Was I really going to enslave my children to the very thing I was being freed from? Did I want to inflict the bondage of holding on to things upon them and their lives? You know, we don’t always just pass down our good traits to our children, sometimes we involuntarily pass on our weaknesses and habits.
So, as the piles of trash grew, the clutter cleared and the donated book stash had to be moved to the van trunk there was peace. It was as though a burden had been lifted. No longer was part of me living through pencils, books or fabric. My goal from this weekend is to continue to release myself of made-up expectations that a certain fabric has to become some awesome skirt. I choose to not to get upset when a book I saved for my girls to read gets destroyed. After all, it’s getting destroyed while she’s reading it! I will live my life as an open book for my kids to read and not closed in a box to be saved for a later day once a year. I will live life to make memories and not only to “save them in a special place”. I will show God’s love by not putting the importance upon things but on relationships. I will allow my kids and others to experience my childhood and life and not just be spectators.
© 2012 Susan M. Sims
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