I loved Elizabeth Gilbert's New York Times essay on the family's cold house in Connecticut and skating through the woods when the river flooded. Wonderfully visual piece.
Prompt:
Who are you most comfortable around? What situations do you share the true you? Take a moment to think about where you feel free to be yourself. Who are you with? What are you doing? When's the last time you felt this way? Close your eyes to really put yourself in that situation.
Writing Prompt:
After the thought prompt (for any Tony Robbins fans, this technique is called priming), write a letter to the person (alive or dead) who you feel you can be yourself around.
In this letter, describe a memento that you hold dear. How did it enter your life? Why does it hold meaning? What do you hope happens to it once you're gone? What does this object make you feel when you look at it, hold it, think about it, or use it? This could be a piece of jewelry passed down through your family, a favorite book, your diary, a family cookbook, a picture, a war medal, or any other token.
A memento I hold dear? There is nothing. I have spent the last 2 years getting rid of stuff, including anything that would qualify as a memento. Some of these given up things I feel sad about - but hurriedly push any sad thoughts or regrets out of my mind. Dad's damaged Army Trunk comes to mind. How did it get damaged? It was in the barn in Clearwater, name on top was burned or ripped down to the frame of the trunk. I feel terrible about it - feels like a betrayal, letting it go into a dumpster. But it was 40 degrees below zero, my husband was sick with throat cancer, we had to move out of that house by January 15. Many "things" went away. The Adirondack chairs I loved, hand made, falling apart, the wood rotted. Carefully preserved for years and now gone.
Just remember, it is just stuff. We moved across country, spent thousands doing that. Still hauled way too much stuff.
Don't ask about mementos. The whole experience and time was numbing, full of fear and exhaustion, really weariness that I was loathe take on anything else that someone, we would have to pack or throw away, or take to Goodwill later.
Right now - I let go of all of the sadness and loss I feel about letting go of the many things that somehow I inherited from my parents home. I did not get the china, or the crystal, or the antiques glassware. I got what no one else wanted. to take. What was left after clearing out the house we grew up in - one of the houses we grew up in. Three houses in that little town in north western Minnesota. One little house "downtown", the next two facing each other on either side of 4th Ave NE in the "new" part of town.
To identify the items, is to stir up the guilt and remorse for not saving them. I imagine, that this will continue to surface and I will counter with "its just stuff". And there is still stuff to go through and let go of.
I have been so concerned about leaving two houses or a house and a cabin full of stuff to Jeremy and Laura that I made a point, we did, to tell them that inheriting the house (cabin will be gone be then?) they might be stuck with the daunting task of getting rid of stuff, tons of stuff. I look around - not sure any of this stuff is worth anything to anyone.
More on that later. More about how this "transient" life - or life away from family and long time neighbors means that there are few memories around a dining room table (no memories) or being rocked or rocking a baby in favorite rocker, no hutch full of pass down glassware and china.
The one "article" that captured 3/4 of my siblings angst about leaving or loosing the past, a sense of place, or memories of my parents and growing up was the lake cabin at Pelican Lake.
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