the things we leave behind ...

it's that time of year when resolutions are made (only to be broken mere weeks later).  when we all vow to let go of the past, to be better, to move forward.

to be honest, those promises can happen every morning when we wake up.  each day we are given the opportunity to make that day better than the one before.

it's a conscious choice.

this morning, however, i was struck by the significance of our unconscious choices.  or the ones that are made for us that we chose to accept as our own.

i was looking for a coat hanger to hold a macrame project i am working on for my front porch and i found this reminder of a previous (witness protection) life of mine in california.

whether it came from the first one (1985-1988) or the second one (1989-2001) what struck me as significant was the fact that i still had it.

i still had a coat hanger that was likely made in the early 1980s.  why?  why would I hang onto something (pun intended) that old and insignificant when i had been unable to go back to wisconsin (through no fault of my own at the time) and get boxes and boxes of items that did actually have sentimental and practical significance to me?

because it had a function.

when i look at the things i have lost or let go of in the past 50+ of my 62.5 years, it has been the things that no longer had a purpose in my life that i've really let go of or lost.

i could have made the choice to continue to pay on the storage unit in wisconsin until a time when i had actually died or been able to get the items left behind.  but i chose to let them go because in spite of the sentimentality attached to many of the items, they never really had a function in my life.  some had actually been in boxes for decades, never displayed, never held as reminders of happy times.  i held onto them because i was expected to.

i chose to let go of expensive kitchenaid appliances, princess house crystal, pampered chef cookware ... things from my lbd (life before david, not little black dress unfortunately).  i let them go because they no longer had a function. my party ju-ju had been broken by wpl # 3 and his son.  they had dared to break the sacred #1 rule of hosting a party and turned off the background music to watch a very inappropriate comedian because "they were bored."  my guests fled the scene of the crime and never returned, too afraid that the insolence was contagious.

my life changed in 2021.  i changed.  i evolved into someone who valued function over form.  practicality over pride.  each year since then, i have let go of more things that no longer had a purpose or a function in my life.

do not mourn the things lost in 2024.  reflect on the memories or experiences.  choose to make different choices if you want each day.  because what we leave behind no longer serves us.  it is only what we hold onto each day that decides how our lives will function.

choose joy.  choose forgiveness.  choose love.  choose peace. choose kindness, choose hugs ~ Ci 💚