The Price of Letting Go

I am learning how to let go.  Learning being the operative word.    My Mother is gone.  My Father is gone.  I still have their "things".  I have been renting a storage unit for two years now for "things".  I had decided I was getting rid of the unit three months ago, well actually a year ago next month, but I couldn't do it. 

My sister and brother got what they wanted last summer.  So, instead of getting rid of the things, it was easier to write a check every month.  I wondered how I got "stuck" with all these "things".  Should I save them for Addie or the other kids?  Give them goodwill?  I had taken Mom's clothes and enormous collection of shoes to goodwill.  I had taken Dad's clothes to goodwill, well with the exception of five shirts that still hang in "his" closet in the apartment.  What to do, what to do. 

Then, a dear girlfriend from my childhood called and was having a garage sale and wanted to know if I wanted in on it.  UGHHH, what a great way to get rid of things!  So, Cody and his buddies went to the storage unit and got a truck load of things, and Vandy and I went as well and filled up my Element.  Addie even did a small load.  So, I priced them. 

The couch each of us had laid on all those years, tired, sick, playing, conversing on, sat out in the yard.  I sat on it.  I laid on it.  And I thought, don't sell, don't sell.  I want it back.  And those dang hurricane lamps we spent years avoiding breaking while a football was thrown from room to room in my folks house.  And the "new" rocking chair my dad got for my mom.  What was I thinking????  Panic set it. 

And the dear three older women, Peg, Aunt Judy and Ms. Linda just watched me.  Kim, my bff's sister, said, "Just let it go."  And kept repeating it until I finally went down the hill and talked to the people that were looking at my parents "things".  And it's funny, I could sell things from my first marriage, from Vandy's first marriage, but that couch, that lamp, the kitchen chairs UGHHHHHHH. 

Just let it go.

It's just stuff.

You don't have room for it.  And you don't want it either.

Let it go.

So I did.  I brought home the rocker and an end table.  And some dishes.  That was it.  Oh and two lovely wrought iron chairs and a table for the backyard, that I bought at the garage sale. 

I don't feel any different.  The price of letting go cost me a weekend with old friends. Catching up on long forgotten stories and new tales I had missed over the years.  And side pains from so much laughter.  I was surrounded by Grandmothers, Mothers, Daughters and love.  My Mom would have enjoyed herself, just as I did and just as Addie did.