There were SO! MANY! PEOPLE! and lines everywhere, for everything. But it didn't feel crowded. A study in contradictions, really.
Then we came home and I tackled our "bonus" room, which currently functions as a storage unit. Well, started tackling it. Got rid of a few boxes of stuff, to a St. Vincent de Paul store and to the garbage. Put a few more books on the shelf.
Then I found a three inch binder: a photo album from my college graduation. THREE INCHES! I huffed and puffed to myself, sure that an event 20 years ago, no matter how momentous, was not worth a three inch album (especially considering there's more memory books buried in there).
I opened it to the first page, and saw my godmother and her daughter, who surprised me by driving from NJ (after flying from FL). She wouldn't miss it, she said. Then I saw my independent-minded brother, and remembered when I was just a kid and we DROVE around the Gulf of Mexico to attend his graduation in New Orleans. There were my parents, looking more or less the same as I think of them, Even though they looked... younger. The next page was both of my brothers and I - with my oldest brother having an uneven haircut. And then I remembered- this was only a few months after he had fallen off a staircase and cracked his skull about halfway across. He recovered quite well, except his hair hadn't yet recovered from the surgery scars. And then I realized the first few photos, of my family in the chairs, waiting for graduation to begin: all that was because of Steve. He was the rabid photographer.
The Winnie the Pooh book in Scots is so much fun to read aloud (almost impossible for me to read silently). It reminds me of the trip we took, the people we met, the culture(s) I began discovering. The three inch album says more than the photos inside: it reminds me of the brother who's since died, and the irrepressible joy for family that he had (he sparked a few other irrepressible emotions- we were siblings, after all).
It's not all that emotionally laden, of course. And there's a few tough decisions I can make about paring down the over-abundance I have. Now that I'm in my 40s, I've got a bit more history behind me. But I've realized a lot of what I own is about what COULD be: what kind of life or hobbies I could have, what kind of person I want to be. I think letting go of that and accepting what my life currently would be a giant step toward the simplicity I crave.
I don't generally think of Advent as simple... It's generally a little frantic and a little overwhelming with the preparations, the fun stuff, the church stuff. Daily devotions feel more like an "ought to" instead of a "inspiring" habit. This year, I was trying to psych myself up for all that, as usual.
Then I realized the family devotional I bought only has 4 WEEKLY reflections. And the first Sunday was about all the empty spaces in Advent: empty stockings and trees, and homes not yet decorated. And how that emptiness is really about HOPE.
So that's what I'm focusing on. What can I empty from my stuff, in a way that gives me HOPE for new life? And maybe even a tiny home with a big storage shed nearby :)
