Photo by Gillian Mangan
Six years later – six years of moving, coping, hoping and packing – I am still chasing home after losing what I thought it would be, a jarring switcheroo on the old “home is your masterpiece” claim. I’ve been on a journey, but not the one I expected.
This blog, in part, is my homage to my own kind of home tour, only not the one I wrote about in my earlier career. More importantly, I hope The Monday Moving Project speaks to you, recognizing we’ve all experienced literal and proverbial moves in our lives – some welcome, some not, but all requiring our participation. Emotional packing, if you will.
With each move, I’ve grown into someone vastly different from the woman who was at the top of her game living in the home of her dreams and writing about it. Yet, each move, each year, each space has taught me what truly constitutes the definition of a masterpiece. I’ve learned what to pack and what to let go.
Most Mondays, I hope to share with you what I call “Object Lessons,” items that did or didn’t make the packing box and the lessons that came with them. I’m still on the move. The Packing Box Countdown Clock indicates my next move when our current rental lease is up. Yet, my leased life is more than a physical transition from one place to the next. I’m also experiencing the transition of other things, including another child graduating from high school and leaping off into new worlds of her own.
I wonder – where life will take me next?
And will I ever reach my wedding weight again? (I think we all know that answer. Some questions are best kept rhetorical.) So, I consider my countdown in broader terms – the countdown to something good, whatever that infers.
For my inaugural Monday Moving Project Object Lesson, I submit to you this packing box. I have kept many of them. Most are stamped with “This Side Up” in broad, black thick type as a reminder to place the contents inside carefully and respectfully upright so not to damage what’s inside. Here’s what I’ve kept the past few years:
5 Things to Keep When You Lose the Life You Know
1. Love and Belief in Family. Family can be defined in different ways, be it related or chosen. Finding and loving your tribe is often the only known in a world of the uncertain. My husband, son and daughter were each hospitalized at different times in the past few years. We’ve struggled physically, emotionally, financially and any other word that ends with “lly” (Philosophically? Yes, that, too.) But, we didn’t give up. We clung to the fundamental foundation of families (no, not to drive each other crazy from time to time – that’s a different one). We held tight to one another, fiercely focusing only on the things we could change – which was very little. But, we knew we could always love. Boy, did we.
2. Steadfast friends. Real friends don’t require bubble wrap and they will show up for you in extraordinary ways. Small ways, too, that fill a gap you didn’t realize needed filling. Let them.
3. The endurance of hope and faith. In spite of extremely difficult times, life got easier when I stopped trying to explain it. Showing and sharing love to and with others took the lense off of me and my situation. My son, Griffin, recently introduced me to the magical music of Jon Batiste and Stay Human and their current album Social Music. Batiste beautifully captures my sense of hope and faith. Here’s one of my favorites:
4. A sense of humor. Laughing is better than crying especially since I’ve yet to find a waterproof mascara that really works. Crying has its place, too, but all things in moderation. Except for laughing. Exceed at that.
5. A few dreams that shouldn’t be left on the curb. So what if learning to skydive doesn’t seem feasible? Check out a book on skydiving at the library. Start somewhere. For a while, I dismissed some dreams that I later realized were deep in my bones – like the marrow part – that I could not shake. Dreams give hope. I’ve unpacked them now. Actually, writing is one of my dreams. I’m feeling better already.
“This Side Up” reminds me to handle life with care; to be gentle with what’s inside.
That’s what I try to do every day.
Still.
QUESTION FOR YOU
What some things have you kept in your life through the ups and downs? I’d like to hear from you.
A GIFT!
Oh, and I’ve got a little something for readers who comment and will be selected by a highly un-formulaic drawing.
