Grief, letting go, making room for joy
Being a goofball usually helps the mood.
Photo by my dear Tania D. Russell on one of our lovely coffee walk/talks at Stoneview Nature Center.
I’m a little late to the party, but I caught the Marie Kondo craze based on her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Now I get it. Now I get how powerful it is to not only declutter and organize one’s space, but to do it in such a respectful way of honoring our life and our belongings that it becomes second nature to identify which items in our home bring us joy and which do not. I love the encouragement to ask, “Do I want to bring this into my future?” What a liberating choice to make — to only surround ourselves with things that make us feel happy inside! What a wonderful thing for our mental health (and therefore our nervous systems!). But the process definitely is a mixed bag of emotions.
I’ve “purged” my belongings many times over the years, usually before moving to a new apartment, but I’ve been in this place for 9 years now! It’s twice as long as I’ve lived anywhere in my life, from birth until now. Every 2-3 years I’d purge my stuff before moving, but it was always from this attitude of, “Do I need this?,” “I haven’t used this in a while,” “I have too many of these,” or “So-and-so gave this to me, so I feel too guilty to get rid of it.” Even though I am not a big shopper – I spent years as a very low-income mom, I don’t have closets full of clothes, and I tend to mostly buy second-hand — stuff still accumulates.
This “sparks joy” attitude is a new way that feels powerful, and believe me — I turn my nose up at fads, so when I started hearing “sparks joy” all over the place a few years ago, I had a punk rock attitude about it, haha! But truly — instead of focusing on the reasons for getting rid of things, it is refreshing to identify the feelings of pleasure and joy, and the positive reasons for keeping things. It feels like a beneficial flip. And doing it in the order she recommends is therapeutic. Piling every piece of clothing from every corner of my house onto my bed and picking up each item one by one — starting with the clothes that I know I love so I can identify that pleasant feeling — helped me realize that the clothes I love are either super soft fabrics, or have cool patterns and designs that help my out-facing self reflect the interesting person that I am inside. I kept everything that gave me a good feeling, even if I hadn’t worn it in a while or it was 10+ years old, and said thanks and goodbye to everything else that had served their purposes, but would not be coming with me into my future.
This process was a step in my healing from diet culture and toward accepting and loving myself as well.
I had some difficulty at first deciding what to do with clothes that don’t fit me at the moment. Marie Kondo might say I should say goodbye to those clothes, but I do accept that my shape changes from time to time, therefore which clothes fit me fluctuates as well. I didn’t want the not-currently-fitting items to be among my daily clothes because it is a bit frustrating to see clothes every day that I love but don’t fit into, but I also accept that if/when my body does change again, I would love to still have these few beloved items. So I put them in a container and put them away. This choice may not be the best choice for everyone healing from negative body image, but it feels like the right choice for me. I am honestly not “hoping” I will fit them again because the rest of the clothes in my closet are now equally loved — but if I do fit them again, it’s a blessing to still have them! That feels like a positive change for me. Perhaps I will change my mind later, but for now, this feels positive.
Beloved t-shirts, and I love to see them all!
Vertical folding FTW!
I ended up with 5 garbage bags of clothes and about 1/3 of my shoes to donate and hopefully sell — and I can’t even remember what’s in those bags. My closet and drawers feel lighter and my mood feels brighter. It’s easier to find something to wear because it’s not crowded with clothing that has energy that doesn’t suit me anymore. And of course the folding technique (“vertical folding”) is strangely pleasurable. I never imagined I would find pleasure in finding the perfect fold for a t-shirt that makes it look all cute in my drawer. Go figure.
Books give such an amazing flavor to a home, and are full of wonderful words and memories.
And when you walk into someone’s home for the first time, you can tell so much about them by looking at their bookshelf! But piling every single book in the middle of my living room, touching each one of them, made me realize that a lot of these books I’ve kept actually don’t resonate with my anymore, or never did. Shockingly, I donated about 1/3 of my books to a wonderful organization called Re-Book It. If you have at least 100 books (and/or CDs, DVDs, vinyl) to donate, they will pick them up from your house anywhere in Los Angeles County and donate to local libraries and organizations in need. Thank goodness for them because I can’t lift anything heavier than 5 lbs right now while healing from a back injury.
Third of my books donated means I have room for family photos!
After going through various items in the house like kitchen drawers, maps (I love paper maps, and kept the ones I especially love), linens, and random stuff around the house, I started on memorabilia this weekend.
The reason I started this whole process weeks ago is because I realized I have two boxes of memorabilia in my bedroom, on my shelf that also contains my altar. It dawned on me that I probably have memories of ex-husbands (yes, there are 2, and yes, I loved them both dearly) in those boxes that might be contributing to the energy of sadness and grief — and that is definitely not something I want to have on my bedroom altar.
There’s a reason Marie Kondo says to leave memorabilia for last. Man, it’s intense. Honing the ability to sense whether an item sparks joy or not is so much more complicated with such personal items that we have cherished at special times in our lives. I poured the contents of these boxes on my living room floor and just the sight of it made my heart hurt. The lovely cards made by my daughters and my Grandma who is alive and well in Scotland were lovely — but letters from my deceased grandparents, and the hardest part — birthday cards from my ex-husbands — brought up so much grief.
This pandemic is no piece of cake for anyone. Being single through it, with one kid having just moved out of the house and the other in her room with the door closed because 16-year olds aren’t exactly focused on how awesome their Moms are, certainly has its own flavor. Feelings of grief and loneliness are intense sometimes, but re-reading old cards full of love and admiration and faith in our futures together really steamrolled me.
I put the birthday cards from my last husband in a separate “I don’t know if I’m keeping this or not” pile, in between the “keeping” and “recycling” piles. I couldn’t bring myself to put them in the recycle pile. It’s as if getting rid of these cards meant the love really was over, plus some fear that I wouldn’t share a love like that again. But once I had gone through the entire contents of the boxes, and picked everything up to either put back or recycle, I realized I had put the birthday cards in the recycling bag. I think the Universe helped my hands do what my heart wanted me to do — let them go.
The altar, revised.
Peace, calm, and joy.
Love is not lost, it simply changes. I still share deep love with my ex-husbands that I trust will never go away — it’s just not the same flavor as before. And of course the only thing we can rely on in life is change. Joy comes and goes, sorrow comes and goes. Grief and loneliness feel devastating in one moment, and tempered at another. One thing that meditation has taught me is the skill of realizing, “Right now, I’m ok.” I’m safe. I’m ok. These are feelings. Feelings come, thoughts come, different feelings and thoughts come, and they all go. Take another breath. Cry a little, or cry a lot. Listen to some good music, write a blog post, call a friend, visit my Mum for her birthday. These feelings of loneliness will come again, and so will feelings of contentment and acceptance.
Soon I will begin going through photos, which is a daunting task as well, but I think I’ve done the hardest part. Now my one box of memorabilia is full of joy like concert tickets, letters from grandmothers, my daughters’ art, and a few Siouxsie and the Banshees pins — because heck yeah!
I’d love to hear about some of your experiences of going through the process of letting go. It truly is inspiring to hear how others heal by going through belongings, and how we work through difficult feelings that arise. The mind/body connection is evident in times like these, and I think that when we hold onto items that cause us upset (guilt, sorrow, regret), we are causing tightening and stress in our bodies. Letting go of these items allows us to let go of the feelings associated with them so that we can create more room in our hearts, minds and homes for positivity, contentment, and joy.
I know for sure my closet feels lighter, and my bookshelves, now peppered with precious family photos in frames, emanate joyful feelings and memories. The lightness is felt and sensed as I walk through my apartment. It is quite refreshing.