Yesterday, I unpacked my suitcase for the first time since May.  It was bittersweet, I hadn’t expected the mix of emotions it would bring.  As I unpacked and put my stuff away in a new house, new room, I couldn’t help but remember my last apartment and the last time my clothes hung in a closet. I was a little overwhelmed by all the changes.

I think that not having a home to come back to made my time travelling both physically simple yet emotionally challenging at the same time.  Travelling and knowing you have a familiar and comfortable place to come back to is very different from returning home to the unknown of having to find a place to live.  Add on the fact that I gave up all my stuff, an act which was both freeing and yet again, ridiculously challenging emotionally, and it made coming home and unpacking my clothes this surreal experience.  And yes, I found a great house and a super roommate.  Now I just have to adjust to a totally new life.

For those of you that haven’t read the back story, when I gave up my apartment in May and then started traveling in June, rather than put things in storage for a year, I reduced all of my possessions from the last 50 years of my life to 8 boxes, my checked bag of clothes and a carry on, and some gear stored at a friends house (thanks Jason!).  It was the hardest thing I have ever done. At least, it was the hardest thing I have ever done…until now.

Yesterday, I opened one of the 8 boxes. I had thought that it would be a fun adventure to see what I had saved.  Instead, it felt more like opening Pandora’s Box.  The box I happened to open had pictures of my kids, a wood bowl that my uncle made, a ceramic heart that my daughter made when she was in elementary school, a box my son brought back from Australia when he was a teenager.  Similar to the experience of hanging my clothes in the closet, it was like a blast of memories rising up out of the cardboard.  I took out the big pieces and set them on a shelf in my room and then closed the box without going through the pictures.  I didn’t open the other boxes yet.

Today, my roommate and I are going to put up a Christmas tree.  I took out the two boxes of ornaments that I had saved.  Everyone that knows me, knows how much I used to love the spirit of Christmas.  Those ornaments represent 50 years of family holiday memories.  I have to admit, I am not sure I can open the boxes.

So what is my problem?  I had this amazing experience over the past 6 months.  I am a different person.  I shed the memories of the past and stepped into my present and hopefully my future.  I am happy and moving on. The problem is, I don’t want to go back to revisit the past at all, I want to avoid thinking about it and just continue on with my happy life. It isn’t that I want to erase it or forget it, it is all part of what made me who I am.  I just want to keep moving forward.  But there is one thing I know for certain, when something feels difficult and I don’t want to do it, that is the very thing that I need to do the most.  The hard things show me what I still need to work on.  Hmm it might be time for some brutal honesty here Robin. I hate it when I have to really reach inside for the hard emotional stuff. Okay here goes…

So I am looking at those boxes and part of me wishes I hadn’t saved anything… and that feels like a betrayal to all the people who gave things to me. For example, in one of those packing crates are the Shaker boxes that my dad made me before he died and I should feel excited to open them up.  But instead, I am torn.  On one hand, I have these possessions that have memories of the people I love attached to them, possessions like Shaker boxes and ceramic hearts from people like my dad or my kids.  On the other hand, I have the memories and the love of the people, I don’t need “stuff” to feel that. In fact, somehow the “stuff” diminishes from that love.  I guess what is confusing me is that, in the last 6 months, I have felt the love of the people in my life in a really powerful way and that couldn’t have happened with possessions detracting and getting in the way.

I guess when all the possessions in my life had been stripped away and all I had was the love of my family and friends, my whole life was just clearer and uncluttered.  The love I experienced over the last half year felt like the pure essence of what we are as human beings.  I want to make sure that I don’t lose that feeling in the trappings of “stuff” again. That is really what I am scared of.  Because material things, even handmade Shaker boxes made with love from my dad, can never replace the time spent with the people I love and who love me.  So even though I have those boxes, they aren’t more valuable than all the memories or the time I spent with my dad when he was alive.  The mementos and things I have from my children aren’t anything compared to the time I have spent with them and the love that we share.

I guess I have come to understand how much of a distraction all the stuff we have really is.  Obtaining and caring for possessions, working to pay for them, using them to substitute for emotions, buying things to fill voids in our lives, all those things distract us from what is really important in life which is loving the people in our lives and spending time with them. That is the greatest lesson I have learned and I never want to forget it again.  That is what I don’t want to go back to.  Ever.

So I guess I am scared that opening those boxes and reattaching to things will distract me from putting my emphasis on people. Today, opening those ornaments, is going to be a challenge, but I have to do it. Avoidance is never a solution.  I just need to breathe, stay present, be aware and I can totally do this.