Recently, I was looking through a box of memories, almost like a scrapbook – I found an old receipt for coffee at Starbucks, a song I’d written for a friend, a cutout from a crossword puzzle I did ages ago, and some other useless memorabilia. It got me thinking, “Why do I have all of this?” A lot of people say not to keep so-called “junk”, or trash, which I completely agree with. No need to have clutter lying around all the time, and no need to have more than one drawer or box for it. The thing is, most of us wish we had a rewind button for life [actually, most of us wish we had a "pause", "fast forward", "skip", and "repeat" button for life, but this post is not about those life-buttons.]. Well, these pictures, receipts, letters, cut-outs, fragrances, songs, etc, are all things that remind us of those times. It’s our substitution for a rewind button.
In this case, it’s okay to have a little bit of “junk”, so long as it doesn’t contradict these two things: 1) It’s not overruling your life, personal space – your clutter cannot be controlling. Keep it contained to one drawer, one box under the bed, or one scrapbook on the shelf. 2) It’s not memories we’re keeping simply to get that feeling most people call “want”. Many people want to feel “desire” and become obsessed with the feeling, and in the end, they’re depressed because they never got what they made themselves believe they wanted; in fact, it’s not what you truly want, what you truly desire. It’s a substitution for what we want, because we’re confused as to what our true desire is. We try to compensate for the lack of knowledge (because we don’t know what we want), and replace it with other feelings, wants, desires. I fell into this trap a couple times, but believe me, if you just let it go, clean out your life, everything turns out to be fine.
This is a clip of a lyric I recently wrote concerning this point:
If I could start all over,
If I could start anew.
If I could open up my window,
And fly above all that bright blue.
I’d circle endlessly around this,
I’d fly without a care,
I’d watch the clouds around me float,
Suspended not by gravity or air.
I wish that I could start all over,
I wish I could have done it differently.
I wish that life had a rewind button,
I wish I’d hit it accidentally.
How many things I’d try to do again,
How many things I wouldn’t do.
Try not to get my heart all broken,
Try not to be afraid to move.
I’d fly around in fearlessness,
And see it from a different view,
I’d soar above my hopes and dreams,
I’d soar above the oceanic blue.
I wish that I could start all over,
I wish I could have done it differently.
I wish that life had a rewind button,
I wish I’d hit it accidentally.
If I could start all over,
If I could start anew.
I’d pray G-d help me every time,
And pray He help me let it go.
M.fs
