by Fleur 20 Replies latest jw friends
Someday, your great-great-grandchildren will be researching their family tree and will be thrilled to have anything at all that makes you more than a name on a page. Even souvenirs from hell.
But you don't need them yourself. Keep what's precious for your own enjoyment & edification. Lock the souvenirs from hell away - for posterity, for history.
GentlyFeral
thinking a lot about ancestors lately
Fleur,
Just don't be a pack-rat
Dismembered
"Don't you go dyin' on me now"
At the wise old age of 18, I jumped on the JW-bandwagon and discarded most of the items collected during grade and high school. There was only a few years left in this old system of things, so why hang on to the past? BIG MISTAKE!
I've dumped a lot of JW stuff I wish I still had, and when it's gone, it's gone. You may feel one way today and have different feelings tomorrow. If you're not sure what to do, keep it until you are sure one way or the other.
I got rid of all my WTS publications, and sometimes I wish I had at least saved my bound volumes for research purposes.
If you are unsure of some items--pack them in a labeled box. You can always look through it again at a later time and decide whether to toss.
I'll side with GF on this one: I have gradually learnt to love and respect the past, "good" or "bad," which I naturally didn't when I was younger. After all, to be past is an ever-increasing part of our present, and eventually our only future. We are self-erasing traces.
To parody Ecclesiastes, there is a time to burn up the past, for the present heat and light of the fire, and then a time to gather up every remaining bit of memory from the ashes.
thank you everyone for your always sage advice...I can always count on you to bring me to my senses. I realize now that I've already pruned through a lot of the stuff...that it's likely better to sort slowly, when I have time rather than to just do what I want which is to start pitching and not stop till I hear an echo in the room. Would be impossible to replace some of it.
JT...the student has wandered and not been doing her reading *smile* the hard part is separating in my mind what I Am with what I feel I Was. I know it's all one, there is no duality there. But it's a lesson that I'm having a hard time unlearning...maybe I'm fighting it too much.
Thank you for your input everyone...as ever I am grateful.
love,
essie
You leave everything behind to find love, only to find that love doesn't leave anything behind.
Similar to what James was saying, I heard a Sufi teacher quote his teacher in saying that everything needs to be loved, and the way you do that is to touch it or give it your attention, if you're not giving it your attention you should give it away. Now of course this isn't like some kind of rule, but it does reflect this principle of leaving nothing behind. Because of course it is when everything is included that we find union and wholeness.
<clears throat> umm, coff,coff......I am a pack-rat-aholic!
I have saved my babies clothes (only the special ones) and I have boxes of pictures and like you when I look at them it reminds me of my past and stuff I would rather forget. BUT I can't get rid of these treasures so I've decided to re-vamp them.
I'm going to make a (heck probably several) big collages with the pictures by cutting out the people and pasting them onto a back board then frame it to hang in my stairway. That way I've cut out the house, the rooms and ect.....that remind me of the past I would rather forget, it's really the people that are important to me now anyway.
I've also got some projects going with shadow boxes of each of my children where I intend to incorporate some of their baby clothes, shoes and other mementos of their growing up. I'll probably end up giving them to each of my kids, I think they would like that.
As far as some of the older clothes I've saved (like my meeting stuff) I recently started a new job and need dressier clothes so I'm also going to re-vamp them so they are more in style. Thank doG I can sew! What I can't use I'm going to either try a consignment shop or take them to Goodwill.
As I sort out stuff I'm pricing a lot of it and putting it in boxes getting ready to have a garage sale. I'm through hauling and storing this "stuff". I may even look into selling some of my collectibles on E-bay and see how that goes, I've already seen some things I have there selling so why not make a few bucks and buy something I can use now with the money.
I know me if I totally trash them I'll regret it. I left a few things behind in my last move and I already regret it. So think about what you have and make three piles one to keep, one to maybe keep for another year and then decide if you still want it, and one pile to toss out or donate to charity. That's what I'm doing I have this huge desire to purge my house of all my past "stuff" and start anew.
Hope this helped and good luck!
Kate
((((((((Essie)))))))))
Girl, I have wondered where you were...what you were up to. I'm glad to know you're breathing. I've missed ya!
Like Kate, I'm a huge pack rat! I'm so sentimental about everything. What's bad is that Neil is too. We're already out growing the house we bought last June. LOL During the move I was helping him go through a box and we found a love letter his girlfriend from the 4th grade sent him. I laughed as I read mushy and sweet words that I'm sure I wrote to my own boyfriend at that age. But Neil didn't want to toss it. He thought it'd be funny for our kids to see it someday. I had to agree, so we put it back in the box. I'm not too jealous of a 4th grade girl from years past. LOL
Back in the early 90's I tossed all of my JW literature. I regret that. I wish I'd held onto at least some of it. In some emotional moments in life, I've tossed pictures, momentos, books, trinkets...and I've regretted it. So I have a hard time learning what to toss and what to keep. So I keep a lot for the sake of regret prevention.
But other times I do find doing a major spring cleaning is very cathartic when you're trying to "move on" in some sense. Getting rid of my wedding pix from my first marriage was healing. I kept one and have it filed away with my divorce papers. Someday, I hope to be confident enough to share with my children, that mommy was married once before she met their daddy. I don't want to hide my history. It makes me who I am. And lately I've actually liked who I am.
Best wishes to you with the clean up.
Love,
Andi
YIKES! I need help here. I can tell others what to throw away, but....I have 3 adult children, NO grandkids, and still have some of their books and toys put away. and a couple special outfits. These are going on 32 years now! They just remind ME that I am getting OLD...UGH. Plus I have started going to garage sales (I sell on eBay) and My own garage is filling up with TOO MUCH STUFF!
I have about 2 boxes of copies of JW stuff off the internet; from months of obsessiveness when my daughter was dating the JW. I definitely need to pitch that I guess.
so, thanks for getting me started. I think I'll keep my *kids* things for a couple more years. I did toss most of their papers, etc. but the few that I kept, I tried to give to them and they didn't want them~
AuntieJ
