Letting Go.

"Alright, Harriet. It's time to let go of all your old stuff, ok?" I nod. My mom is right. I need to let go of all my old stuff. I get the box of all the clothes I've outgrown recently and put them in the donation bin. I mentally high five myself. My mom gives me a high-five. It's been so long since I last had letten go of anything. You see, recently I've become a bit of a border. I need to keep certain things that give me memories, or I feel like I'm losing a memory. I've needed to hold on to all these things. My mom saw the living room, turned around, and immediately told me I needed to let go. So I decided that clothes I had outgrown should be the first thing to go. Some I completely forgot about too!

And boy, did it feel good to be rid of some of these articles of clothing. Some are completely hideous. I mean, I could barely look at some of it before my eyes felt like throwing up. It was a start. One box was not an entire house's worth of stuff. But definitely a good start and at least one step in the right direction. I felt sad to see my stuff go. But It needed to go. Putting it in the donation box was definitely worth all the tears it brought me to get rid of this stuff. I'm not saying I'm a border. More like a mass collector. I have just a room of boxes full of stuff. My house is small, but this is one of the biggest rooms in the entire house.

We got in the car and got back to the house. My mom and I had barely made a dent in my collection of stuff. But a start is a start. The next day, we got way more than one box did. Almost half the room. Mostly glass wear and figures that my grandmother gave me from her will. I never liked me, but I was her favorite. She wanted all these things to go to me, and that was that. I felt like I had to. She loved me, and now she was dead. I didn't like her, but it felt like I had to keep it. But then my mom told her that she didn't really like her mother-in-law either. That she was crazy and known for these ugly little figures that no one liked. I felt much better about throwing all of them away then.

We just threw the figures out. We laughed about no one even at the thrift store would want them. Later we were snacking and then heard a crash coming from the curb. We went and saw some crazy lady digging threw them. She hissed, "You have no good ones!" and then she kept walking. My mom and I went to the front door super fast, locked the door, and died laughing. We thought no one would want the figures. But here someone comes. Someone who wants my garbage that was somebody else's garbage. Of course, the woman had no clue that was what they were. But it was so weird to know some woman at night looks through people's trash to find if you have thrown away figures. Then she deems them worthy or unworthy.

The next day we got rid of more and more stuff. And the more stuff we got rid of, the better I felt about myself. I felt lighter, freer. It was a feeling I had not felt in a really long time. I felt compelled to keep all this stuff before. I felt like I was almost a hoarder. Like I was drowning in all these belongings. I only left my house rarely if necessary. But when my mom came and found me like this, on the verge of depression from all these items, she found me, picked me up, and showed me that I needed to clean up. It wasn't easy at all, but after hard work and determination, we got there together. So when she left this morning, and we were crying on my porch, I think we both understood why we were both crying. I needed my mom there. And now she had to leave.

"I promise I'll call every day! I love you baby!" my mother sobbed. I could only sob. I think I nodded when she said that. But I could barely watch her go. Last night we were still on the couch and throwing out the last box of junk. But now, she was on the porch with all her belongings about to leave, with me in her arms praying that she would choose not to leave. To stay with me. But I knew she had to go home. She got back into her car and then waved at me goodbye. I went back inside and realized that my house looked normal. The way it was before I started hoarding all that junk. A week later I found that I needed someone or thing to keep me company.

I wasn't growing depressed again. I just found that I was lonely. I wanted all the stuff back so that there was something to keep me occupied. I realized I had lost memories. My mom calls me every day to keep me from getting the stuff back or doing something stupid like getting the stuff. One day she told me that maybe I should get a pet. I told her that I would think about it. The next day, I went to the pet store and got a dog. A chihuahua. I named my dog and got it all these things. The room where I kept all my stuff before we got rid of all of it is where I now kept all the stuff for my dog. I was so happy. My mom even visited me and my dog. She saw how happy I was. How well I was doing. She started calling once weekly. And I could not be happier. I will never go down the same path I went down before.