Burning Pieces of the Past - How Peace Follows Letting Go of Old Stuff
This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours outside by our portable firepit.
My objective: to burn old documents and paperwork no longer needed. It's part of a new routine I'm following this year: Every day, I take on and try to finish one task I really would rather not deal with-- process old paperwork, repair something, unpack a box from the attic.
My Parents Saved a Lot of Stuff!
The majority of what I found in the box I chose to empty today were old documents from my parents' house. They passed away some years back, and I ended up with boxes of paperwork-- bank statements, utility bills, tax documents, investment statements, insurance papers-- they had been keeping as records.
Beach bonfire, Denmark
My mother, especially, seemed to have hung onto virtually every piece of paper that "might be important." Like many elderly folks, she had saved things... but never gone back through them to weed out the oldest.
I found paperwork dating back all the way to around 1986, and as I burned all this stuff, I could slowly feel a weight lifting... as well as a slight sadness as these "last remnants" of my formerly closest relatives on Earth went up in smoke.
As I looked at the nature of the papers, it was easy to see that my mother's life revolved heavily around "her investments." There were meticulous stacks of papers in folders, outlining every stock and bond trade she'd engaged in for the past 30 years. But no personal letters, no journals, no indications of what she thought and felt in her daily life.
You might wonder why I would bother to carefully examine everything in the box. Well, my mother was somewhat fond of packing money (cash) into envelopes and putting them into places in her stuff for "later investments."
Alas, I didn't find any stacks of $20 bills... but I did feel very peaceful and relieved after burning all the paperwork.
Looking Back, at Myself...
Going through this pretty time-consuming process-- even though it was merely one box of many that live in my office closet-- made me realize that I am probably not as well organized as I would like to think I am.
Old farmhouse, Denmark
Just the other day Mrs. Denmarkguy was applying for an energy assistance grant for the winter which required my Social Security card... and it took a lot of searching to find it.
I came back inside and looked at the boxes in the closet again, and realized that if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, it would be quite a mess for someone to sort out my stuff-- especially personal papers. And that added some additional inspiration to my desire to become better organized this year.
I have moved many times... and perhaps because I have moved many times, there always seem to be boxes of "stuff" that don't quite get unpacked each time I move. Some of it, of course, is the inevitable paperwork that goes with keeping five microbusinesses, and all the documentation the "establishment" requires you to keep.
But there is so much more... "stuff" I have hauled around for little more than nostalgic reasons. And to what end? So one of our kids can sit outside on a winter day and burn it all, 20-30 years from now? Doesn't seem like a very good use of time and space.
How about you? Do you consider yourself to be "well organized?" Are there boxes and folders of paperwork you haul around with you when you move... and yet haven't looked at recently? Have you had to sort and process the old papers of someone who died? How did that make you feel about your OWN state of organization? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
created by @zord189(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180111 01:20 PST
Clean and throwing old stuff and keeping the good one🙂🙂🙂
This actually sad post makes a lot clear, and opens eyes. We have to think how we organize and store relevant information.
This will be crucial and key in future!
Cleanliness is good
I love it
Interesting. Thanks.
I am doing the same this year. I feel I'm drowning in paper and clutter, l although to be honest I'm not as bad as a lot of people I know.
I got rid of all my books a couple of years back because I knew I wouldn't read them again. I'd had them for years and taken around to world when I'd moved, bought them back, left them in attics. So I'm now now to about 30 and I notice that I haven't opened those 30 over the last couple of years either so maybe it's time for those to go too.
I have an attic full of art materials and found objects too. Lately I've been deliberately using the paints where there is only a little left in a tube and it feels really good to chuck them out once they're empty.
I long for a simpler life in terms of stuff. I did think about starting a challenge here. I ran a successful group on FB where we supported each to get rid of 1000 things which worked really.
However it's taking a lot of time just getting my head around the basics here so I decided against it. Maybe next year!
Good to be done with the old stuff by burning it
Ah! don't worry mate. Burn everything out, do like the 'green lady' and contribute to ¡Save The Planet! }:)
Saving unnecessary things (a lot of them) seems to be a common thing for all senior people.
I absolutely was touched by some of your observations. There is both pain and release in letting go of "possessions" that are really "burdens".
Having gone through the process that you describe so well in this post myself recently, when I stripped my accumulation of a dozen years of "stuff" down to a few suitcases to take with me to my new life in Greece, I am well aware of how difficult it can be.
Letting go of books (too heavy to ship across oceans at any reasonable cost) was shocking to my sensibilities. Letting go of most clothes, which a "poverty" mindset had led me to hang on to long after I last used them, was in a way tortuous. But so freeing!
Letting go of tools and supplies, things that I had accumulated to make it possible to live an independent existence in the event of disasters, was gut wrenching. I had to give away or sell them at a fraction of their acquisition cost, unused, to people that had no thought as to what they had been acquired for and hence placed little value on them.
To be perfectly honest, some of the letting go was beyond my emotional capacity at the time. Without the help of a good friend who helped by making some unemotional snap decisions (to the dump, to the charity store, to the garage sale, to the fire pit etc.), I might still be staring at a roomful of stuff in horror :-)
On a much more rarefied level, this letting go may be one of the best possible preparations a person can (periodically) make to prepare for a less painful death/passing on. Then we will not even take our physical bodies and senses with us (and we are VERY attached to them LOL).
It's bittersweet letting these things go, especially if you actually destroy them. I completely agree, it's a great thing to do, I'm actually following a similar process too and I have experiences some of the same emotions. 🙃