Remembering and Letting Go: A Balance

So, for the last two days I have been re-organizing and cleaning my apartment. I have felt the sudden need to finally figure out what to do with the clutter areas of my space, and to try to make it feel better to live in. I get such a satisfaction out of organization, but I often can't get myself to start because then suddenly I need to organize EVERYTHING and the project is so big that I get overwhelmed and don't do any of it.

This time, I tackled a bunch of smaller projects, and it has been much more manageable.

One of the things I was conflicted about was a little shrine I have had set up in my room beside my bed. Last year I lost both of my grandparents in a terrible car crash, and I had set up a little corner to remind me of them. I had all of the items I had taken from their various homes when we were cleaning them out, as well as pictures of them, cards from them, everything I could find that reminded me of them. (I also added pictures and items from my dear Eddie, our family dog who also passed away last year.) It was really important for me to have all of those things set up, it made me feel like I was actively remembering them, and like they were still with me in some way.

Today was the first day that I looked at that corner and I realized that it was time to put it away. As I started to pack up some of the cards I felt a twinge of guilt at the idea of packing them away. It's interesting to me that as I write this, it makes me sad all over again, thinking that in some way I am putting away the memory of them, but really that is not the case. The reality that is finally starting to sink in is that they are always with me, in my thoughts, and I don't need a bunch of their belongings, collecting dust, to remind me of that.

Instead, I decided to put a bunch of their pictures together in a little collage on my wall, that I can look at and see how much love they both brought to my life. It felt like the right thing to do.

 Grief is such an amazing phenomenon. I have been learning a lot about it through my past year of experiences, and one thing that really strikes me is how it progresses at its' own pace, and there is nothing we can do to speed it up. It is quite an amazing lesson in patience, and faith: the fact that we will feel what we feel in different ways, for as long as we need to, no matter what anyone says or does. I have found a new stage of my grief, and it feels like it was all so long ago, and yet here we are. That said, it is always a progression, and all we can do is roll with the tides, and see where it leads us, checking in along the way.

I feel I made an important step in my progression today.

Love and Kindness all.