Winter clothes out – summer clothes in. Thanksgiving decorations out – Halloween decorations in. As seasons come and go, I pack and unpack my storage bins.
After each holiday I trade out my holiday stuff. I re-sort, organize, and thin out my years of collected decor. Some items hold fond memories of family fun, other things remind me of someone or somewhere in particular. I have no clue where some things have come from but in the bins they go.
When I open the boxes again to decorate for the next year’s holiday, I inevitably wonder, what ever happened to? where did that come from? and whatever possessed me to keep that? And the holidays come and go.
But packing and unpacking my seasonal clothing is a completely different experience. Its deeply personal. As I pack, I wonder what my life will be like when I open this box next year. What surprises and unexpected events will have occurred? Will someone I love get sick or die? Will our country be in a civil war? Will I be healthy and well and still fit in size 8? What will I have learned? And most importantly, I wonder if I be a better wife, mom, neighbor, and Christian? I believe that is the point of our lives – to be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today. Indeed, this packing and unpacking has become an important ritual for me, filled with meaning.
As I write these words, I wonder just how to end this little ditty. That is always my greatest challenge. Then it occurred to me, I know, I’ll end with the end. The end of my bins and the end of me.
At this writing, I am 63. I am quite confident that I will live a very long life. Most women in my family have. But sometime between now and then I hope to learn to focus more on the people and relationships in my life and less on the stuff I have accumulated. At the end of my life, I hope to have given away my earthly my treasures, together with the stories of their significance, to those I love.
But one day, someone else will have to go through what is left of my bins full of stuff. My kids and grandkids, I suspect. And I am sure some of the items will cause them to wonder, what on earth? Why did she keep this? Or so she had that all along! LOL
So, I’ll close by asking, What’s in your bins?