Our Prized Possessions

It’s mine.  It’s all mine.  No one can make me get rid of any of it…..and I won’t.

People collect things.  When I was a kid, I collected baseball cards.  I had a lot of them (in my opinion).  I was an Oakland A’s fan at the time.  Mostly because other kids in the neighborhood liked them.  I didn’t even really like to watch baseball.  But I collected those cards like crazy.  Bought packs stuffed with crappy gum whenever I could.  I’d go to card shows and look for deals on multi-packs.  I’d trade them with other kids.  I loved going somewhere and finding the Beckett magazine to look up card values.  I only ever had one that was worth much, but that was short lived.  Thanks steroids.  You stole my money!

My grandfather used to love going to yard sales and flea markets to look at old tools.  He’d buy whole boxes of what I always thought looked like junk.  Hammers, screwdrivers, pliers.  You name it, there’d be a box full.  When he passed away, and we went through his workshop, we found drawers full of the treasures he would come across.  None of it was worth anything.  He just loved looking at them.  And he had a passion for the work that could come from using them.  If my grandmother ever tried to throw anything away, you could bet that he was going to drag it back into his shop and hide it somewhere.  He just couldn’t seem to be able to bear the thought of things leaving.

Now, in my adult life, the thing I seem to hold on to the most is thoughts.  I wish I could say that they were all good, happy, and productive thoughts.  Nope.  Trust me, I have lots of happy memories.  I remember fishing with my dad as a kid.  He’d come into my room, lean down and say “Jeff, the fish are biting.”  That was all it took to make me spring right up out of bed and I was ready to go.  I remember family trips…usually going to visit other family members.  I remember my college years (mostly).  A lot of good times with friends.  Getting married, having kids, buying my first house.  There’s a lot of good stuff there.

But what I seem to have the easiest time remembering is anything bad that was said.  Maybe criticisms that I received.  Criticisms that I didn’t feel were justified.  Words that cut into my very being and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.  Those words and criticisms didn’t always come from outside sources.  I've always been pretty good at knocking myself down.  Telling myself that I could've done better.  Then being mad at myself because I didn’t do better.  My shame spirals have always been pretty brutal.  Beating myself up for making mistakes or just not being up to some ridiculous standard that was set for me (often set for me by me). 

I’ve been going through therapy/counseling off and on for several years, and I fully expect and hope to be doing it for several years to come.  It seems that everyone I’ve talked to has always told me that I need to let go of the negative things that I have thought or felt.  I’ve always struggled to put those trying times behind me.  I’m realizing now that maybe forgetting them or disregarding them isn’t the right approach after all.  What if I can take those difficult experiences….those hurtful words….and use them all as motivation?  If there is truth to those criticisms, and I use that to drive me to do better, isn’t it a win in the end?  As long as I'm not trying to improve in order to seek the approval of anyone besides myself, what’s the harm?  I know that the shame spirals that I put myself through are not healthy.  They’re not productive.  All they do is hurt me and hold me back from becoming the person that I know I want to be.  

So let’s get rid of the shame spirals, and instead have experience elevators.  No, escalators.  I always liked those better.  These escalators are built from everything I've been through.  All of the good, and all of the bad.  And by pulling them together, I can have a solid foundation under foot.  I can take everything I've learned and use it to propel me into the future.  Propel me into the shoes of the man I want to be.  Propel me into the life that I want to lead.  

I know all of this can definitely be easier said than done.  Life is so rarely easy.  The things that can bring us the most happiness often have the hardest roads leading to them.  But if we never try, we will certainly never get there.  While this feels somewhat like an epiphany, it also feels like such common sense, and something I should have thought of a long time ago.  Sometimes we hear things, have people give us advice or guidance, and we’re not in a place at that time that we can really understand what it means and what it could do for us.  Maybe I heard this before, but wasn’t ready for it.  I guess it’s possible that my brain has reached a place where it is ready for some change.

Clearing clutter from your house, or storage unit, or wherever it may be is obviously a daunting task.  It’s not easy to decide which things are important.  Which things have a purpose or value that makes their continued presence worthwhile?  Memories are the same way.  The things we remember can serve a purpose as long as we’re keeping them to help ourselves down the road.

The thoughts and experiences that people have urged me to process and move past will never actually leave my head.  So as long as they’re taking up residence inside me, I might as well use those things to make my world a better place.  I will definitely work to minimize the damage that the hard times cause me.  But those memories….they’re mine.  They’re all mine.  And they’re not going anywhere.