The Recycle Bin

I've been working steadily on tying up loose ends at work. There's so much everyone wants me to do before I leave, but there's so much I need to get done for my own goals to be ready to go. I started feeling overwhelmed yesterday afternoon, so instead of working, I started purging. I went through most of the things on my bookshelf and threw away a lot of stuff that I don't need any more. It's amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in 8 years in such a small space.

Then I came home, looked around the house, and felt worse. Where do I start my home purge? I'm not really a pack rat, but I do manage to hold on to little things that I don't need. Last month I was good & gave away tons of clothes too small for Shorty, and clothes too old for me. But it's things in the house I have trouble with. I just don' t know where to start!

I realize this is symbolic of my emotional state. I've been holding on to a lot of stuff from my past that's been weighing me down...stuff of which I need to let go. I've spent a lot of time in the last 2 years ruminating on the pain from my childhood, my adult mistakes, and all the wrongs Carlos has done to me at the expense of my naivity. And in that time, just when I thought I was moving forward, something would go wrong & I'd start mentally recycling past pains.

Since Katrina, I've been slowly but surely letting go of the damage my relationship with my emotionally unavailable father has caused, healing from my relationship with my mother, coming to terms with my fission (a.k.a. divorce) with my ex-husband, and beginning to settle into my real age of 31...as opposed to the chronological age of 14 that I started with when I got to NOLA. Little by little, I'm emptying the recycle bin into the trash because even though I'm an environmentalist, some things just shouldn't be recycled.