Rayven Michaels

Somehow along the way in my life I became addicted to possessions. I have moved only a few times in my life with many years between them. And boy do I have STUFF!!! Frighteningly so. I have stuff I have had since I was 13 - I am now 53!

Today, while sifting and sorting, I found scraps of paper that my daughter wrote on or colored pictures on and yes they are adorable and everyone should keep a few things like that but ALL of them? Come on, can you say proud mom? Yes, I definitely was a proud mom. I wanted a child for years and was finally told that I couldn't have children without very costly infertility methods. I remember crying and feeling robbed and defeated. Then I did what I always do and shoved those raw feelings into the Freddy Flintstone closet of my mind and moved on.

A few years later, I became sick with "the flu" and didn't put it all together until clothing became too tight to wear. I was shocked that my scrawny frame was actually gaining weight, something I had not been able to do in my lifetime despite deliberate trying. So I was quite baffled. My cycles were very sporadic so even that wasn't a tell tale sign for me. It finally occurred to me to take a test and for the first time in 8 years of wishful thinking, I had a positive pregnancy test. I nearly passed out with excitement. I confirmed the pregnancy with the doctor and had a cinderella pregnancy. No problems whatsoever and 48 pounds later -- YES I gained my woman's body weight instead of remaining a skin and bones sickly little twig -- I gave birth to a 7 lb baby. She was my little princess and I spoiled her endlessly. Today she is a grown woman I am proud of and now a mother to her first child. What a blessing to have a grandson. But as I am pilfering through the moving spoils I find all these little mementos that are difficult to part with. So, I devised a plan, some I keep and some I give to her. Child related mementos aside, I have been finding that I am much more ready to part with things than I have been able to do in the past.

Definitely some things I will keep but there are many things I will not. For instance, I am finally ready to part with the 12 boxes of software research and training materials that I have kept from a job I no longer have, plus the software is no longer relevant to technology of today. Still for many years, because those boxes were a physical representation of a chapter of my life for which I was proud of my achievements, I couldn't make myself let them go. But now that I have decided to let them go, and other possessions similar in nature, things that no longer serve me in my current life, it is an exhilarating and freeing experience. A chore that I had dreaded so terribly was clearing out my prior home so that it could be sold and now that I am actually doing it, I am enjoying setting myself free of the burden of all those possessions. Who knew it would be such an uplifting and freeing experience. I am actually looking forward to going back! In no time at all, the house will be cleared out and then all I will have to do is clean.

Well, now, I must say that the whole cleaning thing is a totally different blog post. Sigh..... house cleaning isn't quite my thing BUT I will find a way to make it enjoyable because at the end of it all will be a "pot of gold" -- a house in saleable condition which means once it is sold, I will no longer have to struggle with paying a double mortgage. Purging is definitely good for the soul. Getting rid of stuff allows me to live smaller but at the same time allows me to live bigger and freer.