In the spirit of spring cleaning, I am in the process of purging my bloated closet. Chucking things that I thought I couldn't live without in a blitzkrieg, an activity that's surprising easier than I anticipated. I've run into a snag though..
I've stumbled upon an old wooden box, a gift from my grandfather, full of handwritten memories.
Old journals, notebooks with sketchings and thoughts, and manila envelopes stuffed with pictures of times I forgot that I ever experience. It's an odd assortment of mixed-emotions: warm nostalgia, a reawakening to the emotions as I'm transported back to the moments captured by the item in my hand juxtaposed with the knowledge of the less-than-perfect memories that separate the man I am today from the boy was then.
Then there are the letters. They are soft, a sign that a significant amount of time has passed since their inceptions. Letters that my parents wrote the night before my State Championship football game and graduation. Correspondence between old high-school flames that I was convinced I loved at the time. Letters from sisters professing their love just before I moved to California. Small notes I received from friends and family that despite their shortness carry an impact because of their thoughtfulness. Letters from former loves (the real ones), some I remember discovering on my windshield after I finished a work shift, some are printed emails, many I thought I had thrown away during the normal purging that occurs during the painful breakup. Correspondence, either handwritten or printed email, with almost-lovers, their words dancing on the line of deep friendship and wistful thinking.
Then there are the letters that I wrote. The ones which were never delivered. The ones that carry my heart, either in the moments of it's breaking or the heaviness just before breaking another's. Nostalgia takes a twisted turn, traced with a form of regret. An entire library of thoughts cram my head as I walk through those experiences as well as the alternate experiences that I wish would have happened or could have made happen but didn't have the foresight in the actual midst of it all. Oh wait, it was those experiences that taught me foresight.
Then I think about whether or not I should toss them, save them, or even.. send them. Seems like a good idea considering I'm in a state of purge right now. So I think about their effect: they may change the recipient's retrospect of my reality or how I felt during that time but it wouldn't change what happened. Some the recipients I talk to (kinda), some I don't, some I make a point to avoid. I wouldn't even know how to go about finding the addresses to send them along.
As all of this swirls and grows, I find myself taking one last look, a deep breath and listening to the sound as I rip them apart and toss them in the trash can. I don't throw all the letters away, just the ones I shouldn't be hanging on to anymore.
The point is this: That was then, I'm in now. Many of those experiences are buried in pine, six feet under time. My life is much different now than it was then. I'm a much different person too. Who I was when I wrote those letters is dead and gone. The pedagogy of trial by fire has burned the naivety and fear of the unknown. I've lived a little, experienced some and learned what is and is not love and loss. As such, the letters are like takeaway memos of a long meeting that I didn't want to be in. In the scheme of everything I deal with on a daily basis they are just trivial pieces of paper. The lessons are burned on my heart, and I am thankful for them because they came at such a great cost. Throwing them away is just the physical action of hammering the last mental nail to the coffin I began building long ago.
Challenge: Burn it all. Let it go. Don't wish for what should have been or could have been. You can't bring them back, they are chapters that have already been written. Take those lessons and write new ones to look back on, this time with a smile.
