Letting Go of Things

I’ve been going through things lately. Physical things (knee, back, etc.). Boxes of things. Over the course of our long relationship Becky and I accumulated a lot of things, things which have sat undisturbed since she "joined the greater number" last year. But the lease is signed in Great Neck, change is afoot and it has become necessary to finally deal with these piles of things that I have heretofore ignored and left to weather the heat and cold of the drafty attic in the house on Brighton Avenue. I have approached this task with some trepidation since I know I will be called upon to sit in judgment of these things and decide which will be relegated to charity and garage sales and which will be granted a reprieve and end up in boxes in yet another storage area, hopefully to be discovered by Jack when he is old enough to ask questions about his mother and what she was like.

If he were ask that question today I’d tell him that his mother was a bit of a pack-rat. After three days in the attic I have filled up 8 contractor bags full of old clothes, books, fabrics, patterns, sewing supplies, wrapping paper and old luggage. In the morning on the way to work I’ve been furtively dropping off these bags at the Good Will boxes across from Staples. (I say furtively because every day the boxes are filled to overflowing and there are rather stern warnings posted all around about the evils of dumping-which is kind of funny for Staten Island-but who wants a summons for making a charitable donation?)

I’m making headway, but I’m down to the things whose disposition completely confounds me. What, for example, do I do with the diploma Becky earned from her Kung Fu school? What about a drawer full of buttons? Old ID cards and drivers licenses? Artwork purchased on our trips that looked good at the time but upon arriving home was deemed too ugly to hang? Picture frames? Framed pictures? Yesterday I came across the box of maps. Whenever we’d travel, Becky always saved maps of where we were along with information about the area; tourist brochures, blank post cards and the like. Not exactly personal stuff, but not exactly impersonal either. In the era of the internet and GPS, I don’t need a map of Maine, but I felt kind of funny tossing it.

I suppose anyone who has lost someone who has been a part of their life for a long time has gone through this sort of thing. I’m finding I can only take it in small doses; an hour a day or so. Otherwise the decision-making process; what stays and what goes, becomes a little overwhelming. I feel like I am directly responsible for the image Jack will have of Becky as the years go by and therefore what I decide to keep for him is a choice I don’t want to make lightly. On the other hand, if I don’t accelerate this process somewhat I might as well move my bed into the attic because I won’t be done until Thanksgiving.

I identify as a Buddhist and therefore intellectually understand that everything is ultimately impermanent, especially stuff that has been sitting in the attic for several years. Let’s face it, a lot of this stuff was jammed up there when we moved in and hasn’t been looked at in several years anyway. For all intents and purposes it was already gone. And yet, and yet. You look at a mundane task like clearing out the attic differently when doing it reminds you that life is short and death is forever. I think today I'll just concentrate on the pantry. There is very little thought involved when tossing out old pasta. Peace.