Bagging it!

One of the great gifts of this year, for those who have survived it, was the time to sort.  

Like many, I culled through my closets, ferreting out the bad decisions. I let my brain settle long enough for the luminous thoughts to rise above the muddled ones. I emptied my calendar like sweeping off a chess board and then savored the clean open squares, only now beginning to consider what I will let back in. 

So that as I make those decisions, now, about whether to go to this gathering or take up this partnership, I remember what a wise friend has taught me to ask, which is simply:  Does it belong to me?  And in the asking, the answer is clear, because there are things in this world that are unquestionably mine to explore and love and devote myself to, and others that are not. It isn't a possessive question but a clarifying one, because we can't commit ourselves to every consequential cause nor perfect every skill and occupation; we must choose what is ours to do and do it wholeheartedly, leaving the rest to belong perfectly to someone else.

 

Last week, as I moved boxes and furniture from a storage unit back into a house my husband and I had been renovating over this year, I left half of the items on the moving truck, asking the movers to drop them please, at our Habitat for Humanity store.  I realized, as they emerged from their year of hiding, that they don't belong to me anymore.  

I walked into my new old house and breathed in the emptiness, the space around what matters to me and nothing more. The clarity of it makes the light expand and fill the empty places, more alluring to me than ever before.

All the Best,

SHW