Cleaning Up

I told my boss I was leaving back in early December '09, and the last 8 months had been about mentally preparing for August 28th. Several momentous occassions were to be packed into the final month: a 20 year grad class reunion, introducing my parents to my birth mother, organizing a farewell party, and saying goodbye to my girlfriend. Many of these experiences would seem difficult for most, but I was seldom worried. Cleaning up the things from my past, on the other hand, gave me quite a problem.

It seemed to me a life-changing motorcycle trip to South America required some big steps to support it. One of them was getting rid of everything I owned, keeping only what could be stored in a 2'x2' box. This seemingly drastic measure served a few purposes, but tantamount was this: I believed I had to let go of any unneccessary clutter, so there was space for something new to come along. It's hard to put that brand new suit in a closet that is jam-packed full, right?

One last week spent in Stettler on the farm in late July had proven to be a godsend for hot, humid weather after weeks of heavy rain. Although the grass had never been greener in my mind, the clouds of mosquitos ready to attack prohibited us from truly enjoying the outdoors. This precipitated some indoor work, so it was time to look at all the things I had stored in my parents' basement since I moved out to college in 1990.

As I had already practiced letting things go from my apartment clean 10 days prior, the basement clean was somewhat easier than expected. I was quite surprised at the things I had amassed over the years: pins, certificates, taxes, the list was exhaustive. Hesitating briefly at times, I calmly placed stacks of paper in a box for recycling, separated a couple boxes of items for charity, and a bag for garbage. My hope was that at least someone could use the things I did not, and that somehow they would live on, and in it my memories of them. What I did experience though, was an uneasy mix of relief that I had done the job, and a fear of letting go all the things that mattered to me in the past. The question I finally asked myself was, "am I my things?"