With or Without You

The moment comes in each one of our lives when we are forced to make some long awaited choices that we never wanted to make. Whether it be an actual choice or perhaps the choice is forced upon us and we must merely choose to keep moving on. Every one of us at some time, and probably many times, choose what we keep with us and what must go.

This weekend I had to go to my mom's house to pick up the boxes of things that were mine. Seeing as my former step-father decided that we should no longer have a place to call home, it meant that my mom had to go in and get everything lest it be thrown away. In the process she came upon boxes of my things, some long forgotten, that had to be put back in my possession. But that's where the choice came in to play. What are the things that I still hold close, still want to remember? On the other hand, where do you draw the line? What possessions can keep making the journey thru life with me, and which ones are better left as being merely a memory? If you think about it though, all of the things that we retain which serve no practical purpose are simply the urns of our memories. They contain within them a spirit of some treasured emotion, time, or place. In each of those memories though we define who we are by which of those items we choose to bring with us on the rest of the journey of our life.

For me it was difficult. Do I bring the Pound Puppy that sentineled me each night? How many notebooks from those countless courses I've taken over the years are necessary? What knowledge has been lost that is still contained therein? Should I keep the baseball cards that embodied the images of my heroes? That old hockey stick, the adventure book, the pictures of that embarrassing moment we want to forget, the love notes from an old girlfriend, the pictures from that time at camp, the old Tonka truck that used to race around the house...each one had a memory, each one had a place in my life.

Sifting thru those boxes that smelled of dust and insulation I realized what I hold dear, what I can live without, how much I'm willing to put up with for sake of a memory, and where I draw the line in deciding what I can and can't live without. While all of the things in those boxes are just threadbare animals or yellowed pages to anyone else they can have so much more meaning to us. We can really define who we are by what we cannot let go of.