We are taught to acquire from the very first moment of our life. We learn that when we make a fuss, things come our way, whether it is a full belly or a dry bottom, stuff happens. As we get older, toys, toys, and more toys seem to be imprinted with the message that the more toys we get the better we are. When I learned to read I very quickly found places where I could free safe, places that I could explore who I was and who I was not. I would search the drug store for paperback novels to add to my collection. I carried some of them with me until just a few days past. I collected them like treasures. Some lifted my heart when I was feeling alone. Still others were books that I collected on the way to building a personal library for both my profession and because they continued to help me feel safe.
We are encouraged to have hobbies that are simply an excuse to collect stamps, insects, books, crystal, and rocks. We collect those toys and those recipes we think we will try someday.
If we are fortunate we curate our collections, keeping those things that we want to pass on to someone or to someday sell. We take care of them and are proud of them. Some times they overwhelm us when we just start letting them accumulate. We no longer find joy in the curating but simply collect, we acquire more and more not even realizing that it has happened not even knowing that our closets are full, the drawers and shelves are stuffed with threats to our heads every time we come near.
Sometimes we are so afraid of having anything around that we give it all away and are repelled by others sense or need or satisfaction. We don’t carry memories without collections, some how we have lost the understanding of how and why others need or want to have objects around them to spark something in their lives.
And it all comes from the first time we were satisfied with something that was used to pacify us, to keep us out of the way, to teach us to acquire, to own and to consume.
Some of us need to hold on to everything that passes through our hands. We build walls with our stuff just like we were trained to and then others wonder why we get lost. Those of use who hoard might be hording stuff because being around people hurts too much and so the walls are built to keep the terrors out. But there are those that let nothing be apart of their world and when others feel repelled by the seeming emptiness of memorabilia or souvenirs like the hoarder hoards stuff, the empty builds another kind of wall, another separation.
I practice something called life review. It is an intensely personal process that helps me look at where I have been and where I might be going. When I first started this practice in my late 20’s I had not done all that much, but I felt like I had so many regrets. Over the course of the years, I have learned to hold on to change. It is the recognition that everything that I am afraid to change holds some terror in my life. Whether it is fear of the past or the future or the regrets buried deep inside that have never been resolved. The ultimate goal is to be able to pass from this life content, not necessarily famous, or wealthy, not surrounded by friends or relatives or enemies, but content knowing that you have lived willing to wait for the coming days.
Over the last year I have pared down my library. It has been a slow process. I first had to acknowledge that I was never going to be the head of a large parish and that the books I was holding were becoming weights on my life. Still other books were those that were ones that had helped me feel whole and helped me define who I was, but no longer who I am. Still others were those that I had collected, would never read again and the acid paper was just pleading to be neutralized. Since I had collected them I wanted to recover the cost of acquisition but no one wanted to buy my old books, even the collectible ones. I offered them to scholars but they wanted, yes wanted, their very own new copies, as they began building their libraries. I asked and thought and finally I found someone who might want my library and over ¾ of my collection received a new home. I found other things hidden in the closets and under the bed and it was hard to simply let them go, but like life review has taught me it was a change I needed to hold on to.
I had already started to pare down. I had donated my CD’s and DVD’s to charity. I had sorted the novels over and over again until finally they made the trip to the used book thrift shop so that they might help still others, by being sold again and shared in a new way.
Thirty linear feet of files have been indexed, scanned, and shredded making access easier and lightening the load.
I write this as the beginning of writing about the life review process. Most years the process was very easy, I didn’t think much had happened, others like the year my dad died or the year my boss, who I considered a friend betrayed me, a lot of work has gone on. Now, as my life is in turmoil, because the shelves and closets were emptied to do a renovation, the review feels like a tornado grabbing me and turning me and so I write to be able to grab on and let go, to hold on to the change.
