I can't believe how quickly time is passing. 132 days to go until the wedding which will be followed by the move of my dreams - to Europe! To say that I am in touch with my feelings of gratitude is an understatement - I am constantly saying little prayers of thanks for the life I have. The hope here is to live in the moment as it all unfolds. Not to get caught up in the highs of excitement or brought down by the lows of stress. My hope is to honor the gift that is this life I have - and to cherish it all or at least to see it. See and feel it fully.
Right now I am burning all of the CDs I have collected over the years on to my mac so that I can give away the actual CDs that take up space. And here begins the process of whittling down the "stuff". This effort is also allowing me to remember moments -- I don't listen to a lot of this music anymore, the music that was mostly bought and collected by a teenage girl, but there was a time when these albums were on heavy rotation and deeply moved me and now those songs are taking me back - I'm listening to Boston's "Let Me Take You Home Tonight" and it makes me think of my 10th grade crush who also loved that song. Great Memory. Or when I moved to Duluth for my first year of college and felt so alone because no one knew me and I didn't know them - and to cheer myself up, I cleaned my dorm room while Neil Diamond sung about the power of Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. Or when I moved into a cute little house downtown Orlando with my best friend Michael and spent every night singing musicals with him - how happy we were in that home singing "Damnit! Janet!". Or when I fell in love with the guy that I thought was going to be "The One" - he gave me the Coldplay Live 2003 album for Christmas, which we listened to constantly for those next few wonderful weeks before the relationship turned abusive and I settled into a terrible nightmare that would last for the next 2 years. For example. The moments. The moments that led me here.
Getting rid of the stuff actually feels freeing, although I am only at the beginning. And I have no doubt that without this transatlantic move ahead of me, I wouldn't be doing this. I have a hard time parting with things - I'm sentimental about the stupidest stuff - but lately I've been watching Hoarders and it is helping me see where that kind of thinking can get you. I have some of the tendencies that these people suffer from and I identify more than I judge - I told James that I thought that because of the identification I felt, this might be a problem for me and he assured me that I am only "marginally untidy." Thank God he is gentle. But then he also told me that the first time he came over, my place looked like a bomb had gone off inside. I remember at that time just feeling "too busy"...anyway, thank God it didn't scare him away! My favorite guy on Hoarders, Extreme Cleaning Specialist Matt Paxton, said something one time that I thought was brilliant. Matt was on a case where the Hoarder, Jerry, allowed a homeless man, Gary, to live in his front yard in a poorly constructed tin shack because he wanted to help the guy out - who'd tried to rob him, which is how they met, by the way. Jerry is a kind and sentimental guy so he invited him to set up camp in his front yard which soon was strewn with cigarette butts, condoms, and gas cans (for huffing). The homeless guy's shack did not have plumbing - obviously - and he was using a big bucket to collect his waste. To this Matt said "If there is one thing that I have learned doing my job it's that we are all just 4-5 life experiences away from having a bucket of shit." PROFOUND.
When I was trying to decide what to name this blog, I looked up Ireland on Wiki...and it mentioned that Ireland is sometimes known as the Emerald Isle (OZ metaphors swim in my mind) as well as The Island of Saints and Scholars, which I'd never heard before. When I read it, I thought about how wonderful that idea was - to be moving to a place filled with Saints and Scholars!! To live amongst those who strive fully with hearts and minds and spirits. It's a lovely idea. What will life be like there? Meanwhile, I will stay in touch with what life is like here...and how blessed I am.
