Recently I have been purging all the things that I no longer use. It’s somewhat freeing to only have those things around me that are necessary or bring a smile instead of the heaviness that too much stuff makes me feel.
For years I prepared Thanksgiving dinner for around 14. Thanksgiving was always such a happy time of family and sharing. My nutty son made me laugh hysterically on that day while I was cooking. Since he has been gone that spark has left me.
One of the things I have been purging is a lot of dishes. It is amazing how many dishes can be accumulated over the years. One such was a very large setting of gold stoneware. Alongside that stoneware of solid gold color was many dessert plates of various patterns to mix in. I listed them on fb market and had no luck in selling them. My daughters didn’t need them. This week I packed them into boxes and took them to Goodwill thinking someone who needed them might find some joy using them. Yesterday, a very be gruntled man there was taking things from the back of my car and didn’t see the other bag I had set down. Even though he had watched me set it there. He turned and stumbled a bit dropping the larger box. There laying on the ground were, not just my broken and shattered dishes, but years of sweet memories. Shattered glass the whole box broken. He began to yell at me for putting the bag behind him. He had no idea what those broken dishes meant to me. At first I was angry because, in his embarrassment, he lashed out at me. After several hours of reliving the episode it hit me…how very much, like that broken box and dishes on the ground, my life felt just like that….a stumble here or there… and shattered pieces. How quickly things we hold dear and think are so beautiful can crash to the floor in hundreds of broken pieces. Whether is was at our own hand or the hand of others…brokenness and heartache….hundreds of broken pieces that cannot be fixed.
This year I will spend the holiday alone. My younger daughter needs to spend the day with her husbands family and my older daughter lives just too far away to drive up for the one day. I am too tired right now to make a fast 1 day turnaround drive.
Stresses of life have left me feeling more lost than ever. This purging of things and what those things had meant to me has left me with some very melancholy moments.
Life’s journey, or at least mine, can leave us feeling melancholy at times. Like those broken dishes lying there on the ground in hundreds of pieces. He simply walked over and tossed it in the trash. I feel like I have been simply tossed in the trash right now. Unnecessary and abandoned. There are definitely things that need to be tossed in the trash along the way. There are things that cause us to stop and take pause to evaluate. Does this thing or this person add joy and meaning to our lives or is it just stuff sitting there gathering dust unused? Or worse causing such pain we cannot breathe. I certainly do not have the answers for this, or any of it, but I do know…there is joy in the happiness some memories bring.
As this month of remembering our blessings and having gratitude in our hearts progresses try to sort through the things that might need to be tossed and those to keep and hold dear. It’s not the “things” but the relationships with those around us that matter most.
Happy Thanksgiving dear friends. Find the joy in your journey of life this holiday season. It’s there. Sometimes it just needs to be remembered.❤️
Reflections on Life’s Journeys 