Why do we keep stuff we really don't need any more?

Does a 50 year old still really need that old football jersey? Does he think that as long as he keeps it, he is still the guy who ran for the touchdown? Does he really think he will do it again, or could do it now, just because the jersey is hanging there dry rotting in the closet, taking up space?

Often I think we keep stuff from what we wanted to be. She wanted to be the person who cross stitched lots of stuff. The flosses were organized in a box, the needles kept neat, the pattern booklets in order, all the stuff right where it could be used, but it sat. Ignored and gathering dust, it is a ghost of what someone wanted to be, but wasn't.

Sometimes it is things we once were, but aren't any more. He used to be in a band. She used to bake and decorate tons of cookies. They don't do those things any more.

It's not that they couldn't, it's that they don't, now. He plays at church on Sunday, and for fun, but not professionally. She gave up baking and decorating huge numbers of cookies, and does smaller batches now. But they hang on to what they once were. Sometimes even when they have no interest in being those things again.

These things from the past tie us down from our future if we let them. Give the stuff away to people who are those things today. Or if it is totally useless, recycle or trash it.

Keep the memories, but don't hold on to the stuff that keeps you from moving forward, from being what you are now, rather than what you were or what you thought you wanted to be.

Keep only what will propel you into exploring your interests today. The things that will help you become what you really want to be now, the you that you are growing up to be.

You will spend the rest of your life growing into that person. I have a sneaking suspicion we keep doing that in the next life, too. Only there, it gets easier, there isn't so much stuff to get in the way.


Today is:

Best Elf Awards -- Fairy Calendar

Canadian Goose Festival

Deadwood Day

Feast of Everything Green Except Money (Hooray for veggies! You'll need them before you have that root beer float.)

Feast of Transfiguration, Orthodox Christian

Full Sturgeon Moon, or Full Red Moon

Hiroshima Day

Independence Day, Bolivia

National Fresh Breath (Halitosis) Day (Shouldn't that read, anti-halitosis?)

National Root Beer Float Day

Peace Festival, Japan

St.Hormisdas' Day

Tan Hill Festival (Teinne -- Celtic Holy Fire)

Wiggle Your Toes Day


Birthdays Today:

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob, 1934
Andy Warhol, 1928
Robert Mitchum, 1817
Lucille Ball, 1911
Clara Bow, 1905
Hoot Gibson, 1892


Today in History:

Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada founds the city of Bogota, Colombia, 1538
Holland (The Dutch Republic) sells Brazil to Portugal and the two countries sign the Treaty of The Hague, 1661
The first private military school in the US, Norwich University, is founded in Vermont, 1819
Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel, 1926
The Federal Voting Rights Act is signed, 1965