Years ago, a friend and I discussed how our lives seem to progress in chapters. The chapters vary in length but, like chapters in a book, they usually end with hints that lead you to keep reading to see what comes next. Reflecting on a year that has passed and wondering about the one to come is standard procedure as we prepare to turn the calendar. In my story, if the chapter of 2023 had a name it would be called the letting go year.
If we pay attention, we usually know when it’s time to change things up but that doesn’t mean the process will be easy. Last winter, I paid attention and realized that, at my age, it’s unwise to keep a home with so many steps, so I moved out of the house my parents built on the home ranch in 1956. For years, it has been used for a stopover to overnight on the way to an eastern destination, a place to settle in for a few days and connect with family, and a haven for visitors and friends traveling through. Other family members will utilize it now so I didn’t have to dispose of furniture and such, but it’s amazing what one finds stashed away, and I’m not even a person who saves things much. Every item that needed to be let go was wrapped in my family story.
Boxes of old pictures; people I used to know whose children, long grown, have babies of their own. Horses, dogs, delicate lace on a wedding dress, birthday cake on a toddler’s face, playmates of my kids. My parents, when they were younger than I will ever be again, a sunset over hay bales that cast long shadows on the meadow, like the shadows of those long-ago years.
Here are Christmas decorations I’ll never use again, and cast-iron skillets, too heavy now for these arthritic hands. Pictures that I’ve treasured, but there’s no wall space for them in the house I share with Bruce. Books were the hardest, I want to keep them all.
Disappearing in the distance now: the ways I made this house my own after the folks were gone, the trees that Dad planted to shade it, and that big hill back of the barn where you can see the neighbor’s place, most all the way to Brownlee, and the meadow where the creek runs full every spring.
Time to let it all go, along with the notion that this chapter would never end. All but the memories. I’ll keep those, they don’t take up much room.