| Over the next few days we will be going through our storage unit... to throw away things we've paid money just to 'keep'. And in the back of my head... a little warning flag is going off. How much of the 'good' stuff am I still going to keep???? and pay to store??? And why???? If we can survive without it because it is wet and mildewy and ruined.... why couldn't we do without it before??? Sentimental value... just what is that really??? Maybe it would be better to just take pictures of everything....to be able to look at the 'memories' that way... in neat books that don't take up near as much room... and then just get rid of as much as is possible. The thought came to me today, as I was pulling apart some wet papers.... "If I was dead... none of this would matter to me..." And it made me wonder...."Why am I making it "matter" so much now?????.. by keeping it..... If it all got totally burned up...or totally demolished in a tornado, or so drenched, and I couldn't even bother to go through it..... I wouldn't even know what I was missing. I couldn't even "cry" about it... because I would not have any memory of the specific papers and magazines and clothes that would have been destroyed. I'm going to do some crying tomorrow. But not a lot. It's not like someone died. And I have to keep a perspective about this. If we died... the kids would probably just dump the majority of it in a dumpster anyway...  . So the question becomes... what am I "really" holding on to? What does the stuff really "symbolize"..? And how important is the symbolism, if I don't even know what's in the boxes until I open them up... years of papers, memories, records of years of living... What does "records" of the past, through reciepts, magazines, etc., really do for "Today"...?? It's been costing us $70 a month...'today'... to keep physical memories of The Past. A past we someday won't even be able to remember at all, even with a picture of it staring us in the face!!  (We justified the expense as being part of the rent we would be paying if we lived in a larger place with an attic and a garage to store it all... it makes sense that way.) But just how much of the past do we really need to keep carrying around???? The older we get... the more 'past' there is, and the fewer todays coming around the bend. If we can't take it with us, if it won't matter at all to us after we die, wether we just stay in the grave, or go on to another life.... why do we let it matter so much in the here and now... ??? I believe in an afterlife. And I can pretty much guarantee no one up there is lamenting over the collections they left behind in their closets, basements, garages, or attics. Shouldn't that tell us something!!!??? It tells me that I will finally be forced to do what should have been done a long time ago.... decide what to get rid of.... and get rid of as much as possible. So, maybe I need to focus not on what I can save... not on what is salvageable.... but just on what I can go ahead and just get rid of. If it had been ruined, I wouldn't be keeping it... sooooo the fact that an item is not ruined... does not automatically mean it needs to be kept and stored. I kept putting off this task... for years. Why??? And what else have I been putting off doing... that needs to get done before I am forced to do it in less than pleasant circumstances....like a flood. ??? Is it childhood rebellion.... "I want to play... I don't want to do the dishes now..."...? I don't want to clean out the storage, or the attic, or the garage, or the closets "now"... I'll do it later, tomorrow, next month.... Tomorrow is going to come... but the 'stuff' just may not make it to tomorrow. So maybe it's wiser to start doing today what can be done, by choice. Because when the choice is taken out of our hands by mother nature.... it's just not a very fun thing to deal with. The decision is ours to make. Do we say goodbye to our stuff with a smile on our face as we bless someone else with it who could actually use it,...or do we wait and say goodbye to it by throwing it in the dumpster because it got ruined in some way, or because our kids didn't want it.... after we saved it for years for them to treasure and appreciate it... which they don't. ???? Does anyone know just exactly what got 'saved' and kept from the WTC buildings?? Sometimes... you just need to sweep out the 'debree' of the past... and clean off the foundation.... and build something new. Sometimes... you just really need to say goodbye to 'stuff'..... An added thought just popped into my head.... Jesus lived here for 33 years...without any stuff at all.  Nothing. Nada... zip, zilch... nothing. Dear God... deliver me from the weight of 'stuff'..... and help me learn to instead fill my life with the things that matter more, and most... and let me be guided by your dictation of just what those things are to be.  | 
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