perspective driven purging

When we moved two years after Jeff died, I was forced to go through many of his things. At first, it truly saddened me. I stared at the mass of accumulated items that he had kept for sentimental reasons....sometimes I scratched my head. Sometimes I cried. Often times, I was furious. Why the hell did he keep this collection of bottle caps and an assortment of baseball caps from seemingly every godforsaken place he had ever visited. I was appalled by the amount of "life dandruff" he had accrued that had no meaning to anyone who would be left behind. This "stuff" certainly wouldn't have told a stranger anything interesting about Jeff aside from the fact that he liked hockey and drank a lot of beer. I told myself that he was a bit of a pack-rat and that I would never have so much "junk".

Last week a friend of mine dropped off a trunk of mine that had been stored in her basement since a move five years ago. We hadn't been able to fit it on the moving truck or in our little house (I can't totally remember why now) and had planned to retrieve it soon-ish. Life has gone on. Our son, Briar, was born. We have since moved twice. Jeff died. The trunk was essentially forgotten.

When my wonderful and funny friend dropped off the trunk, I was at work. She left a note saying, "Jeff was not the pack-rat. You were!" I scoffed thinking, "All the stuff in that trunk is IMPORTANT! She just doesn't know...." But then I took a look inside. Sweet love of all that is good and holy. I was a pack-rat. A bad one.

That night, I removed every item from that trunk. Sorted every letter, toy, item of clothing, and set of seagull wings (yes, sea gull wings. I don't get it either). What I found was a realization that not only had I changed over the years since Jeff's death but that my ideas of importance and sentimental significance have changed dramatically.

Since cursing and sorting Jeff's stuff and realizing that much of the "stuff" has no relevance to who he was and his journey as a person....at least from a separate person's eyes, I realize that the majority of items I have retained over the years will have absolutely no significance to anyone after I die. It will be a pain in the heart and the ass to my family, children and friends to have to sort one-eyed dolls and broken clocks when I die. But the old journals and handwritten letters from friends were interesting and certainly chronicled my life and my being.

From now on, I will turf anything unimportant. A few letters, many photos and special cards can stay. Drawings from the kids and one or two special items can stay. But everything broken, unused, or forgotten for sometime will be sent to the secondhand store or the dump. I now know that just as Jeff left everything behind, I will as well. The detritus from his life is just stuff. And mine is too.

This week, I have let go of about 75% of the stuff in that trunk. And I feel better. Lighter. And more aware of what I will leave behind and the snapshot of the person it leaves.

Real or remembering?

.Photo from here...

I was walking the dog in the sunshine earlier today. I was listening to a fabulous song that makes me think of that bitter-sweet sensation.

The feeling where you could swear "they" are with you. That you can almost feel their breath on your neck or hear their familiar sounds in the dark? The feeling that they are thinking about you or have just whispered that they love you in your ear?

Is it real? Is Jeff really non-physically "with" me? Can he see me? Is he expressing his love for me through some sort of cosmic vibrational love? Or is it just a chemical memory of a hormone cocktail that was once specific to our relationship? Merely a jolt of misfired oxytocin?

I want to believe it is his essence/spirit/soul slipping into the spot beside me and holding my hand or stroking my face with whatever energy would have once controlled his large calloused hands. I want to hope that he can feel and hear my thoughts. That he can know the loss that is still felt without his body next to mine.

But the pessimistic, rational scientist that lives within my brain scoffs. I begin to wonder if it is a similar phenomenon to deja-vu - scientists claim that this occurrance is merely a misfiring of the brain's chemistry creating the illusion that you have already experienced this exact moment.

In my heart, though, I can feel him. I have known the love of others. Though not a deep or profound, I have loved other men. And what I feel when I sense him near is not the residual effects of generic love. It is a feeling specific to him...and me.

Maybe I am crazy or naive. Maybe I am just allowing myself a fairytale to alleviate some of the feelings of loss and to provide hope that I will be with him again. But I really do feel like he is with me. Not all the time. But when I do, I sense him so breath-takingly close that I freeze and hope that this moment lasts just a little longer. That for just this second, it is just he and I.