The Ego's Attachment

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                                                                       Yes, this is my picture. (c) 2010 All rights reserved.

          It started…well…a long time ago.  When we were in the process of moving from WV to IL.  Was it then?  Or was it even farther back?  Before we left MO for MD?  Somewhere in all of that…Yes, considering the move to MD and the ensuing yard sales…I would say it started in 2006 then…if not farther back…the process of letting go of things.  The yard sales were when I let go of the baby clothes…everything that was not irreparably stained or torn I had saved, from both children, except where I donated things to people who were really in need.

          Despite all the things I have given away, sold, donated and just plain throw away in the ensuing years, there is still so much sitting in my house that I simply do not need and do not use.  Why do I have these things?

          The panic of OHMYGOD, we are moving into R’s house…like, every single bit of us and our stuff, not to use his basement for storage until we find another house, but as in this is now our one and only home…has been hitting me deep and strong since Sunday afternoon…Monday night was the worst of it for me…we were all tired.  I was hot and irritable (PMS is always so much fun anyway).  We were all coming down w sinus issues.  Blah. Blah.  Blah.  Thank goodness R loves me as much as he does and that he knows me as well as he does.  He took me home and we went to sleep.  He would not let me stay up and fuss.  I needed the sleep, badly. 

          But my brain, my brain, who knows so much more than I do, my brain who holds on to details the likes of which I find incomprehensible, rolled on and on.  My brain was making choices, planning, separating, mentally packing, making lists.

          Yesterday, when I was able to pry my loving offspring off the couch and away from the tv, we went to our house.  My first duty was something I had started the week before because the Veteran’s had called asking for donations.  I fear these charities will be sadly disappointed next year when they come calling, as there will be nothing left for us to give.  But this year?  They shall continue to receive an amazing bounty from us as we go through…everything.

          It’s my closets.  It’s always my closets w me.  When I first entered my junior/senior year of high school (remember I took both together), I had barely anything.  I had more notebooks of my writing than I had clothing or anything else put together.  My grandmother sent me some bras and I can still remember looking at them and thinking…it looks like a harness…and not in a good or sexually intersting way…it looked like something you would put on a plough horse or a mule…ah, the memories…snicker…

          Yesterday, standing in first one closet and then the other, I had some very major break-throughs, emotionally, spiritually, mentally.  Oh, the things I had been holding on to for no reason.

          I had clothing for jobs I am never going to take again.  I had khakis for one set of jobs.  I had black slacks for another set of jobs.  I had dressy outfits hung up together for another set of jobs.  I had blouses for office casual.  I had business professional outfits, which I haven’t worked since I was an intern as a teen-ager.  I still have clothing from my wedding and my honeymoon w T.  Ok, so I kept the dresses.  Just a couple.  I like them.  I wear them.  Even though I have yet to wear the dress I was actually married in again since 1990 whatever—it’s still beautiful and still me … I will wear it this summer, because I like the dress. The past year or two, I have looked at it and thought, I could wear it, but today is not the day.  Yesterday I looked at it and thought, why haven’t I worn this dress recently?  It took me a second to recall it was ‘that dress’. 

          I decided I would go through my closets ruthlessly.  I kept only the things that are essentially me.  Ok, so I tried to narrow down my jeans to twenty pairs, but that is simply not going to happen for me.  It’s under thirty and that will have to do.  I did get rid of every blouse that was not me, or that made me think of AR or anywhere else.  I got rid of every top that I had a twinge of this doesn’t look right.  I stripped away detritus where I had not really been cognizant there was detritus.  I went through every single hanger, every piece of folded clothing.  I went through jeans, slacks, skirts, sweaters, sweat pants, stretch pants, shorts, lingerie, socks, pajamas…every single drawer, every shelf, every closet.

          I can honestly say that I think every item of clothing I have on a hanger can fit into one single small closet now…w the stuff that is not hung up needing only a few shelves.  This is my entire wardrobe…all four seasons, plus maternity clothes.  I even went through my shoes.  No less than six pairs of shoes are being donated this round…anything that makes me the slightest bit uncomfortable is gone.  I touched my sweaters and thought every single turtle neck must go…except for one, but that is made out of a silk-cotton blend and if every I devolve a sweater, this will be the one.  I believe I now own more cardigans than I do pullovers.  Scary, isn’t it?  When I moved from MO to MD, I had two, maybe three HUGE plastic containers full of nothing but sweaters, plus the odd box of sweaters here and there as well.  With cardigans, I probably have twenty sweaters, maybe.  Twenty…out of originally…hundreds?  Who knows…

          It was so interesting to go through everything without the emotional attachments with which I have been approaching this process.  This time I went in specifically…this shirt is me…these pants are not me…this sweater is me…this skirt is not me.  No stone was left unturned. 

          One particular piece really brought it all home to me.  This very beautiful lacey patchwork skirt, with little bells on the ties.  The elastic has long been overstretched on it, but it also has a tie at the waist.  I wore this skirt when we boarded the cruise ship on our honeymoon.  I loved that skirt.  I still love that skirt.  I took it off the hanger, tested the waistband.  Looked it over.  This skirt really is me.  But…it isn’t serving me right now.  I haven’t touched it since the cruise, except to move it.  I know I won’t wear it.  I put it back on the hanger and started through the rest of the skirts.  Then I stopped.  I came back to that skirt.  I looked at it.  I really looked at it.  I was keeping it only because it reminded me of a time when I thought I was happy.  Before the ex opened his mouth and ruined that whole cruise for me…I don’t even remember now what it was…but somehow it was my fault that things weren’t perfect…that was the whole relationship.  Everything was my fault, even though all he spoke were lies.  That is what that skirt represented to me.  In truth, that lovely skirt, with its wasted waist band summed up that person I once might have been but would never have a chance to be.  The person he did not ruin.  The person I allowed to turn and walk away.  I made the choices…I chose to believe…not believe in him, just to believe him.  I chose yesterday to lay that whole episode to rest and let it know some peace.  That chapter of this life is over.  The mistakes I made there and the lessons I learned there still reverberate through my life now, but I am not the same person and I do not react the same way.  I am a different person now, someone who can take that step back and know it is me reacting and if given a second or two, logic and reason can reign, or at least be introduced.

          I am grateful…although I am sometimes upset by admitting it…for all the pain and the misery and the agony and the fear I went through w the ex-husband.  It is over now.  It is done and gone.  Now it is finally laid to rest, never again to be mourned.

          Funny how things works out.  The little things, like a skirt, that can characterize an era of a life.  Now it, like so many other things, is gone from my life.  I am not making room for new things to come in to fill up the space that these things have left.  I have made room for a new life, a new energy, a new wondrous fulfillment—which does not require that every little space be filled or that every item lost be replaced. 

          As I let that one simple skirt slip into the bag along w the other donations, I felt the scar tissue in my heart shift and drop away.  I felt the first cool breath of fresh air on the newly healed spot there, the bright pink flesh.  It is a good feeling, that strange wistful pain that comes when the old and not so wonderful slips away to be replaced w the new and unmarred wonderful. 

          Despite everything that went away yesterday…and I am telling you, between clothes, throw pillows in my bedroom (the pillows are from a couch that I haven’t had in four years) and just a touch of the linen closet, I do not feel hollow, or empty, or in need of a shopping trip to refill the shelves or anything like that.  I feel so full…so perfect…and completely satiated and satisfied.  It is truly incredible.  I have more than I could have ever asked for these days.  The holes in my soul that I have used material items to fill and to fulfill no longer require such drastic measures.  All of that need is gone now.  I am happy.  In ways I honestly never dreamed possible.

I have thirteen 30 gallon trash bags ready to be donated to the Vietnam Veteran’s Association this week.  That was all gathered in one day…and that is not even everything.  I have already started the plans for the next charity that calls to request donations, simply because I don’t think I’ll be able to get rid of as much as I want to get rid of before the VVA comes to collect what we have ready this week.

Balancing My Act

            Pria asks a valuable question: How Do You Find Balance?  If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you have found that that strange sense of balance is something I often seek.  However, of late, things keep falling into place and my life seems to be balancing me, rather than me balancing it.  It is all about choices.  The choices I make and why, and how, I make them.

      There is work.  There are the children.  There is housework.  There is the boyfriend/lover.  There are friends.  There is extended family.  Where are the lines drawn?  Where do we find the time to make the space we need just to be, just to breathe?

      I have spent so much time fighting to find time, fighting to make time.  I don’t fight anymore.  Do I still feel overwhelmed?  Now and then, I do, of course.  Overall, however, I have found that peace, that space within, where my soul pauses to breathe in deep. 

      In the process of simplifying my life, I have found that I am naturally doing more than simply removing unwanted clutter from my physical surroundings.  A big lesson came this past week, when I went through my wardrobe yet again and walked away with three huge bags of clothing to donate to the abused women’s shelter.  I had thought that I had already gotten rid of more than enough clothing, but it seems, I was wrong.

      I am clearing out the spaces in my life that are not held by physical items.  I am making time for things, without real effort, because I decided to choose things that mean something to me.  I no longer will do ‘work’ that does not resonate with me.  I no longer take any client with whom I do not feel a genuine connection.  I do give recommendations to other services though; it is not as if I turn people out in the cold.  I am working more on the other genres in my work life: writing, painting, birthing spirit dolls.  I am knitting more.  The spinning is coming.

      It’s been more about slowing down.  It’s been about taking stock of who I am and what I really want, not what others want of me or for me.  This past Wednesday, I didn’t do Wishcasting with Jamie and the group, because I did not feel the question applied to me this week:  What do you wish to take a break from?  I felt this question didn’t apply to me because I have already dealt with all the things that would weigh on me so and make me need to take a break.  Not that a break from my daughter now and then would not be a good thing, but overall, it’s not necessary.

      I have trimmed away the things in my life that don’t mean as much to me, even when others are telling me I have to do this and I have to do that.  I tend to get caught up in trying to market myself and trying to maintain an online presence and trying to do all these little myriad things.  I don’t like myself and I don’t like my life then.  This is when the Universe kicks me a little something to say, it is ok.  Take that step back, or that mile back.  Read something like this, about how a writer got a two book deal without any social media at all.  This, of course, harkens back to my massage therapy and Yoga school doctrine of no matter what you do or how much you pay, word of mouth is always your most valuable tool to get more clients.  I take great refuge in that thought.

      Knitting takes time.  It is a meditative tool. 

I have adopted more pranayama into my every day world.  This helps me focus and calm myself throughout the day.

      Spinning takes time.  Combing and carding the fiber in order to spin it takes time. 

      Cooking and baking take time.  Cleaning the house takes time.

      Taking care of my family takes time.

      I take my time with love and care.

      I approach my art, whether writing or drawing or anything else, with that same attentive care and love.  Before I lay hands on a client, if it is a healing touch session, and even if there is no laying on of hands, I approach everything with love and care. 

      This is now how I approach my life.  If there is any sort of fear or anger or depression or anything that does not to me feel right, I don’t do it.

      This does not mean if I have writer’s block, I avoid the page.  I might collage something to get the juices flowing before going back to free write for awhile. 

This does not mean I have given up my schedule or my daily goals.  I still have a minimum of 1000 words per day to write, although since NaNowriMo, I have tried to keep the goal closer to 1800 to 2000 a day.  Poetry not included. 

      The extension I am seeing is terrific.  All I did was sit down and think, what means the most to me?  What best expresses me? 

      So, a 1950s housewife, coupled with a 1550s homesteader mentality, maybe?  Yes, that is me.  Some days I think I might just die without my computer to reach out and touch my friends and associates.  Some days I am more than glad that the kids overtake all the computers in the house and I have no choice but to ignore mine’s existence.

      Balance.  I keep my goals manageable.  I don’t feel bad if I let things fall behind as I pursue some other interest.  I don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink, but clean laundry can lie in a pile for a week before I get around to folding it.  I write.  I play with my kids.  I snuggle with my boyfriend.  I see the future opening up again.  After everything that happened the past few years, it was difficult for me to see the way things were moving forward, especially when I focused more on getting somewhere rather than being somewhere.

      I always take the time to smell the flowers, to watch the wild birds play, to feel the wind on my face, to laugh and to be inspired.  That is how I maintain my balance.  I am finally very proud of myself, for the first time in a long time.  I am genuinely proud of myself and of who and what I am.