meLOVE: letting go

This is in response to this post by my beloved soul sister which includes Johnny Cash's cover of the NIN song "Hurt." Frankly, I'd been wanting to write this post but was having trouble working up to it. Thanks for the kick in the pants, Christine.

The song reminds me of my Daddy. Johnny Cash and my Dad had a lot in common. Musicians, recovered addicts, married to their singing partners until their dying day. This NIN song is something my Dad never would have heard if it hadn't have been covered by Cash. In my Daddy's repertoire of music, I had my favourites. While there are some songs I just associate with him (On the Wings of a Dove and Will the Circle Be Unbroken) and I wish he had recorded or at least written down the words and chords for the song he wrote about me and my sisters that I only remember says he's not a hero, he's just a daddy of 3, and that we're asking for dollars not dimes. There are others that are indelibly "him." One of these is "I'll Fly Away" which I usually can't listen to without being reduced to a blubbering idiot. And, he did a fabulous cover of Tennessee Flat Top Box, which when I'm missing Daddy is always a surefire way to make me smile and snap me out of my funk.

For Christmas my stepmom brought me my Dad's bible. Now, I'm spiritual, not religious, but I know how much the bible meant to my Dad, and it was a grand gesture. BUT. As much as it meant something to my Daddy, it means nothing to me, because I didn't share his love for the church. The ONLY thing of his that I want, I don't have, and I realized that I have been spending the last 3 and a half years blaming my return to work for the clutter, disorganization, and stagnancy in my home and my life. I realized that I have been holding onto virtually everything, from the 5 boxes of old-man clothes and the solidified model airplane glue and cracked rubber tires to socks with holes.

This may sound problematic enough, but then you realize that I have a family of 6, so everyone assumes we are in want or need of something, often their cast-offs, which may or may not be a) of use or b) serviceable or c) intact. "I thought maybe you could fix up this broken lamp..." Oh my, yes, thank you for thinking of that - I'll try and find some time to get after it any day now.... "You sew, so I thought I'd bring over all these pants that need repairs so your kids can have clothes; the ones with stains are good play clothes, too..." Of course, yes - we trip over the piles of clothes the kids use, and find articles of clothing they've outgrown but never worn in the backs of their drawers, but how could we refuse and not seem ungrateful? "Here's my old collection of romance novels with Fabio on the cover..." Oh, well - I've never read a romance novel in my life and always thought Fabio kind of looked like his mother procreated with a horse, but I'm sure by the end of these first two boxes I'll learn to love them. WTF, right?

Now. The average person would just go ahead and say, "No, thank you..." Or, at the very least, "Thank you..." and then quickly take the stuff to the Goodwill or the dump. But not me, nope. I can't get rid of anything. I'm terrified to let it go, because WHAT IF. There are two WHAT IFs. The first is, WHAT IF I get rid of something and then the person who gave it to me finds out I've gotten rid of it and they are angry or hurt I didn't keep it, or even worse, they want it back and I no longer have it? (Yes, this has happened to me - my fear isn't unfounded. I've been called everything from irresponsible to an ingrate for not accepting and keeping everything given to me.) While I've always had an overly healthy sense of sentimentality, it was pretty well under control until right around the time I went to work. Which I forgot was a month after my Daddy died. Coincidence? I think not.

The second WHAT IF is a direct result of WHAT IF I get rid of something that was given to me by someone I love, and then they die. WHAT IF I got rid of something and they were disappointed or angry or hurt by me before they died? WHAT IF I give away something and don't realize how important it is until after and it's too late?

Enter the little orange and pink plaid dress. It wasn't Serejane's birthday. It wasn't Easter or Christmas. It was just a regular day and my Dad stopped by with a little sundress with matching bloomers and hat. It was a little big on Serejane, but oh, so adorable! He had said to me when he stopped by to drop it off, "We were shopping for groceries when I saw this, and knew my granddaughter needed it." The next summer, when she was 2, it was too small, and while cleaning out the closets I put the dress and hat in a give-away bag, but forgot the bloomers. About a week later, my Dad died, and when I found out that the woman I'd given the bag to couldn't track down the dress I was devastated. I have the bloomers. They're in the odd-sock pile now. They have been getting rotated through the laundry for 3 and a half years now, because I don't know how to deal with them.

My great epiphany - the sight I have gained since Christmas - is that I CAN let go. Not only CAN I let go, but I NEED to. Serejane has her Grandpa Bear. The boys have other things of his as keepsakes. My sister has my Dad's goofy hat. And while I don't have my Daddy's guitar yet, I do have his bible to tide me over, and until then I can let everything else go. I have to. Call it closure, call it purging, call it whatever you like, but I need my chi to flow.

I'm starting small. I'm not ready to go through the boxes of my Daddy's things yet, but I will be. I just need a few (read: many) warm-up rounds. Next week I'm tackling the cupboards and the fridge. This week, I think I handled the spice cupboard and the pantry rather well. I was pretty OK throwing out the can of mustard powder from 1979, and found the can of allspice from 1984 amusing. I was fascinated by the fact that I had kept a can of Watkin's powdered custard that was given to me when Wil was born. If y'all know me even a little bit, you know porridge, custard, bananas, overcooked vegetables, and other like-textured things DO NOT get eaten by yours truly. ~insert gagging noises here~ Why did I still have it? Who knows... It's gone now, along with the mustard powder, the spices I took from my Mom's house when I moved out back in '89, and an assortment of expired things that were all squirreled to the recesses of the cupboard as if putting them in shadow would somehow make them take care of themselves.

Someone once told me that we need to view our lives as a glass of water. It's not about it being half empty or half full - your life is always filling up with people, experiences, knowledge, things, and since you can't pause, stop, or control the flow, you must empty from time to time. So long as we allow our cup to runneth over, we are not even aware of what flows in or what flows out. When we make a conscious commitment to knowing what is in and what needs to go out, we cannot drown.

I don't know when I will get to my Daddy's stuff. There are many places I've made recesses and shadows in which to hide the things I cannot deal with in our home and in my heart and mind. The backs of the storage cupboards, the spare room downstairs, and even the garage have become so stuffed with WHAT IF? that I cannot physically (and mentally and emotionally) handle it anymore. Maybe in February, maybe not until the fall - who knows? But even if progress is small, at least it's still progress.