Shedding

My last post showed how I love to hold onto little things. I like the special details, but still... there's a lot of crap. Or as some more ruthless, less sensitive relatives might say, it's ALL crap! The older I get, the more I tend to agree. If it's not useful, it's Crrrap!

I remember my grandfather later in his life grousing about photographs. I had asked him about the rest of his collection of family photos, and he started talking about how they were all "meaningless." At the time (this was 25 years ago), I was really shocked to hear him say that... he'd been a photographer all of his life, even had a tiny darkroom under the stairs when my mother was growing up. In my family on both sides, family photographs were part of the very fabric of life, documenting the generations, holding the threads of family history and narrative together.

But now, these many years later, I've started to appreciate what I think he meant. I have boxes and boxes of journals, letters and photographs. A few years ago, I started feeling oppressed by the vast *volume* of all these so-called precious memories, blah di-blah. I thought--my god, I've only lived barely half my life and already I have *this* much stuff??? What the hell am I going to do for the next umpteen years? And who will want to look at all that? (I had already seen my future with my parents' house full of things that, as executor, I would someday have to distribute and sort.) It was becoming a chore to store all that stuff, rearranged or no.

I started to plot ways to give things away. I went through photos and threw away double copies of bad photos. I ruthlessly tore through boxes of memorabilia and culled down to the smallest volume (I'm still working on that one; I have a backlog).

I got a Flickr account and started putting photo images there. I still take lots of photos, maybe even more than when I was shooting film, but I've printed maybe 20 photo images in the last 2 years. And I save only the really meaningful images.

Even with my writing, I started feeling oppressed by the writing I used to do. All this excessive documentation that I've been schooled in since I was a child, it's not the sacred task it used to be. Who the hell am I saving it for? Myself? I'm bored with it. For my future theoretical children or future generations? Do they really need my life notes from when I was in junior high? For my husband if he outlives me? Same thing, plus I've already shared the juicy bits. For my literary future biography? *snort*chuckle* For historical purposes? *heehee! as if!*

The only reason I can see to save my journals (for instance) is to reflect on who I have been and how I got where I am now. I do like that. But although it can be useful to return to the past to evaluate where one came from, I'm not feeling it now. The sheer volume weighs me down.

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I used to like feeling the coziness of being surrounded by things that I loved. More often, these days, I can't breath from all the *crap* surrounding me. I just can't stand it, and start flinging things away left and right.

But I don't think I have given up having things that I love. I am no ascetic to live in a spare, blank space. I still love coziness.

But my priorities have changed. Some things I thought were so important, even some of my best-beloved possessions or activities, I don't find so vital any more. It's so strange to see such loved things receding in importance. Such goes the mid-life transition.

It's as if I have been shedding the person I used to be, and the old skin doesn't fit. It itches and binds. It's painful, shedding. Like a bad sunburn of my youth, I'm rubbing it off in curls and sheets, peeling, both horrified and relieved, knowing new skin wants to come through.

It's very sad to see parts of my old self go. As much as I cherish the self I have become, the self I am becoming, I look back on my younger self fondly. So many hopes and dreams, frustrations and learning accomplishments. I don't want to forget all that. I keep small mementoes. As one comic wit once said... Everyone carries baggage, but you want to aim for carry-on luggage, not steamer trunks.

Here's to the shedding...

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