The Lightness of Letting Go

In a few short days, I will be moving across the country. I am beyond thrilled. Where I am going is a beautiful place, and where I am leaving is the me that I was, not the me that I am now. So it feels right. All week, I have been sorting out my belongings, keeping only the best of the best, a few of my favorite things, because I am moving into one third of the space. This move from gracious, three-story brick Southern townhouse to open, loft-style urban Northwest apartment is not what I expected to be doing at this point in my life. And yet, that too, feels ultimately right. The experiences you don't plan so often turn out to be the best ones.

As I sort through basement and attic, office and garage, I have to laugh at all the ages and stages of my life, and I am grateful that with each passing year, I become simpler, deeper, more satisfied with less. Even things I thought I could never part with, I find myself laughing that I ever kept them in the first place. Boxes and boxes and bookshelves of books, enough to stock a respectable library, must go, for there is no longer room. I must keep only a few favorites, and donate the rest to the Decatur Public Library. Surely they will name a wing in my honor. But, I have read them. With rare exception, I will not read them again. As the water flows over the stones in the river, I will not pass that way again. The classes that I taught, the research that I did, the courses that I took, are over. Those houses, those trips, those hobbies, they are the me that was, and it is well and truly over. I can let it all go now.

The experiences I had, the people I loved, the things I have done, I carry within me as a rosary of experience. In my memory, I can touch the stones and remember. I do not need outward reminders. In my basement, a huge stack awaits donation pick-up, and I shall take the tax write-off. More will follow. Furniture, even furniture that I liked, will go, because it no longer fits my reality. And the curious thing is, the more I give away, the more sure of my choices I am, the easier it becomes, and the freer, lighter and calmer I feel. In life, as in travel, there are those who travel light, and those who wish they did.

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