Since I have decided to move to another country alone and start all over, I know that in reality my life as I know it… no longer is.. my life as I know it!? I assume I will begin to change as the different variables that are associated with my life here in America will disappear, and new ones will arise once I reside down under.
One step towards this move is the process of letting go of 99 percent of my possessions…my stuff..my crap. I am only allowed to bring about 2 suitcases full of this crap, which is not much considering I have 28 years of life to pack. So as much as I hate to admit it, the chances of my tutus and book collection making the cut are as slim as me winning a spelling B. Getting rid of material items has never been hard for me because well, I don’t care for them, and frankly, I HATE SHOPPING! But after having a yard sale today, and actually watching people walk away with MY things that I LOVE.. for the price of a freakin chicklet ….
I felt something.
A sense of my personal property being violated, maybe? A sense of crap! Uhhhh.. that’s all my crap, come back!
The sight of people rummaging through my clothes, books, costumes, posters, knickknacks and then throwing them around as if they had no value what so ever bothered me, really bothered me.
“Yea, that red dress you just tossed on the grass! I bought that for a very special occasion and had one of the best nights in that dress!!”
“Oh, those boots you just offered 25 cents for? I saw my favorite band 3 times in those shoes!”
“Hey, you girl! Who just bought by favorite tutu! You better dance your ass off in that thing!!”
As silly as it seems, all these thoughts + a thousand more raced through my mind as each item was slowly taken away from me. Everything else that was not sold was placed aside and given to charity, so at least that put a smile on my face.
Now I am down to just about 2 tubs of clothes, a huge leap of faith, and of course, my LED light up bra – shhh…no judging 🙂
Moving out of the country and consolidating my things also means organizing and storing all of my keepsakes. Talk about taking a stroll down memory lane. I saw things I forgot ever even happened, and people and experiences I forgot ever even existed. As a Cancer, I was born screwed into being a very sentimental person. Therefore, I save the most random things and those are the things that tend to hold the most value to me.
From finding my first and only baby blanket, which I carried around with me 24/7 never letting out of my sight for the first 5 years of my life. (Only if I was that good holding on to iPhones!)
To old love letters from boys in school, which trust me, I did not hesitate to embarrass their pants off when I found them 😉 I found a beer an ex-boyfriend brewed for me 6 years ago. I came across my old Girl Scouts Daisy uniform I wore when I was 5. Found my first dance team audition number I received when starting high school. The script and a call sheet of the movie I starred in when I was 2o years old. Plus many out of a billion concert ticket stubs I saved.
“Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they’re pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse
To say that writing about what I experienced today was easy, would be a complete lie. Going from getting rid of all my stuff, to then going through old memories of my entire life.. It was quite.. emotional. I just cannot wrap my head around why I was getting worked up on nonsensical material items from the yard sale.
Things don’t make me happy. They never have. I just don’t get it?
I thought about it all day and night and finally, it clicked! I thought to myself and realized, you know what does make me happy? Memories. Memories make smiles. Memories make me richer, not materials. I know the real treasures are in my head and my heart, not in that book I just sold to some girl, who will most likely end up using it as a coaster for her bong. This is why I will always insist on this: Instead of buying me some shirt I will forget I ever owned give or take 4 years, let’s go rock climbing, let’s take a road trip, how about a nice hike, go to the zoo perhaps.
MAKE ME FEEL STINKING RICH FROM MEMORIES.
The more I realized and reconfirmed this to myself, the more I started feeling back to normal (well, MY normal ). I got tricked by my own emotion and forgot for a moment that it is the memories connected to these items, not the actual items themselves that are important to me. Now I am smiling and staying positive during this process once again. Woot Woot!
Because I know…
and always have….
The best things in life aren’t things 🙂
<3 Michelle
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