THINGS can own you instead of you owning THINGS!!!

Today is cleaning-out-day which needs to be done while the weather is good and it is not too hot. We are all carefully looking at everything we have packed up in moving boxes as well as other types of containers in the garage that have been stacked to the ceiling since we moved here two years ago.

When I moved from Denver back to Atlanta I got rid of the majority of my THINGS. There were multiple reasons for that decision, one of which was that I was tired of paying to maintain a home that I do not live in. (It is a long story about why that was true.) So, I decided to not have a place of my own for a while and planned to just put everything in storage until I decide what to do for the long term. I also realized that I had too many THINGS. The primary item that concerned me was a beautiful twig bed that had been custom made to my specifications by a craftsman in Georgia and I had concluded that the bed actually owned me. I had moved that bed all over the country and even had it in storage at one time. I had even loaned it to my granddaughter for a while and at this point I can't even remember why. When I moved to Denver I was constrained by what kind of dwelling I could buy purely on whether or not the twig bed could be brought into the house. Is that rediculous? I think so now, but I did not get it at the time. Don't get me wrong, I loved that bed and had many years of sleeping in it and decorating it to reflect different locations and seasons of the year wherever I was. It was my safe haven for years. Now that I think back on its history, I slept alone in that bed the entire time I had it, or it had me.

I also had other furniture that I had acquired at garage or estate sales as well as hand-me-downs from family that I got rid of as well. I had TVs, stereos and other electronic gadgets in every room, which I did not need. The Salvation Army and Goodwill people were happy to help me "down-size". I also gave THINGS to friends and co-workers that made them very happy as well.

When I left Denver on my way back to Atlanta I only brought with me the things that would fit in my Dodge Durango, which was still a lot of THINGS. Of course I had also shipped some THINGS back via UPS before I got to the point of loading my car for the long road trip back.

I still have way too many boxes full of THINGS that I have not yet been able to let go of to this point. I have looked at the THINGS in the boxes and most of them have some sentimental value and are not just THINGS that I have acquired.

I'm just trying hard to not acquire any more things at this point unless it is something I absolutely have to have to live.

When I have another place of my own I will be very selective about what I bring into my space. I will really have to love it for it to become part of my life.

Don't Put Things Off...

In those times when you determine that there is something you would really like to do, such as attending a lecture, driving on a country road, sitting on a bench and watching people walk by, gazing at nothing, listening to the wind in the trees, sitting quietly with a child while they are quiet and still - perhaps sleeping.... The time to do whatever it is will always be when it comes to your mind!!! Anything you put off doing or promise yourself you will do later can very quickly leave your mind and you will never do it. Those are the only regrets that I have about the way I have lived my life - the things I did not do at the time they would have meant so much to me on a soul level. For years I wanted to take a cruise around the Greek Isles but I was always too busy, now that I have the time I no longer have the desire.

Visions Behind Closed Eyelids....

Whether you call it sleeping, daydreaming, hallucinating or whatever, seeing things with your eyes closed, when they seem extremely real, equates to having visions. There are lots of explanations given for this phenomenon but I think what you see is more important than trying to figure out why you see it. Some people believe that dreams are trying to tell us something that we need to know or do, others think there is intuition involved, especially when you have a vision that really happens after the fact. I am fascinated by what actually happens. I have never been one for dreaming and the rare occasions when I did I did not remember enough about the details to hang a story together from what I remembered. Recently I have become a prolific dreamer, sometimes even going back into the dream if disturbed somewhere in the middle and picking up where I left off. The thing I have noticed lately is that I am able to just pop into a vision just by closing my eyes. In some of the visions I am in specific places with specific groups of people as though I actually live there. This phenomenon is going to take some time to sort itself out so I think I will just begin documenting some of the things I see......

Entitlement

It is a mystery to me how people individually, and as groups, have developed this concept that they are entitled to something. It can be anything from support from their friends and families to you-name-it from the government. I was in relationship with a man for most of my life who had the absolute belief that the "world" owed him something and I never figured out where that came from or how he expected it to be delivered to him. I tried my best but whatever I did was never enough. I am not lamenting or regretting anything about the above statement - I am just pondering the concept. It seems to me that we are only entitled to what we can earn for ourselves. When I use the term "earn" I mean that we are each responsible for doing our part in relationships, including jobs, instead of expecting that things will just come to us with no effort on our part. All relationships that are healthy, and that survive over time, involve give and take on both sides. I have had to abandon relationships in my lifetime with people I really cared about because the other person was not willing to participate in that process. In some cases there was so much negativity it was killing my soul, in others there was absolutely no participation from the other party. In the latter case it was just taken for granted that I would always be there for them and be willing to do all the work to maintain the relationship. I still just don't get it but I have learned to recognize those situations and move on......

Doing "Nothing"

For those of us who are over-achievers, just sitting and "doing nothing" seems an impossible concept. In the last few years I have discovered that even when we are "doing nothing", we are "doing something'. Maybe the "something" is just spending quiet time alone trying to get our thoughts together. In one case I deliberately tried to do nothing and wound up watching leaves fall just to occupy my mind. Did you know that leaves have lots of different ways to fall off of a tree? Some do a dive bomb, stem down, rushing to the ground as fast as possible, maybe they are just trying to get the journey over with in a hurry. Others float down like a parachute, using all their surface to stay afloat meandering side to side, stretching the journey out as long as possible. Others still toss themselves down through the limbs and other leaves, crashing multiple times, prolonging the journey but also inflicting pain on themselves and everything in their way. HMMMMM!! Sounds like some people I know on this earthly journey....

Long Term Effects

Some of the actions we take without much thought, except for handling a circumstance at the time, can have long term effects that are amazing. Cases in point - my two girls had developed habits based on actions I took when they were newborns that I did not realize was related until very late in my life. In one case, because I had to stay with my parents during the first year of my first daughter's life, I made a decision that still impacts her today. In that situation there was a lot of noise in the house with a lot of people coming and going. My simple solution to allow my daughter to have her naps during the day was to put a radio in the crib with her and keep it playing music all day long. She still wants to have music or something playing most of the time in her house and in the car as well. When my second daughter was born we had a house to ourselves and I made everyone be very quiet when she needed to nap or sleep. It took her a long time after she was married to be able to nap or sleep with any noise in the bedroom. If only we could have conscious understanding of the long term effects of some of our choices.......on others as well as ourselves.

Choices

Whether we realize it or not, we make small and large choices every day that set the course of our lives. We have been doing that, in some cases, even before we came into this life. We have a choice even concerning choices - we can choose to accept responsibility for the choices we have made in the past or we can deny acknowledging that we did. Either way, we are each who, what and where we are as a result of our own choices. The sooner we deal with that fact the sooner we will be able to chart the course for our future lives by taking charge of our choices going forward. That was one of those hard choices I made in my life - accepting responsibility for my past choices. Now to be more concious of the teeny tiny and large choices I am making as I live every day.