Clutter of Boxes
The room was filled with boxes. There were small ones that allowed you to put in items of value small enough that you could put them in your pocket. There were medium-sized ones that held books and pictures, and some that were padded that could hold breakable things. There were tall, wide, flat ones that could hold portraits and artwork. There were large ones that held big items like furniture and heavy objects.
All these were needed to make sense of the clutter of the house. For the time had come to move on. The time had come to downsize. All of the occupants had moved out or moved on.
It took a while to get everything packed. It took less time to have all that was being kept put onto the moving van that was paid for to transport what was being taken to the new home.
When all the boxes were gone and all the material things that were not being transported given away or thrown out, I was all alone in this big empty space.
It was now time to reorganize and sort the random clutter that was left, my memories.
Should I store them by location? Should I store them chronologically? Should I discard the bad ones and star the good ones for easy retrieval?
As I sat in the middle of the now empty room, I closed my eyes and remembered. Pictures came to my mind in flashes. The first time we moved in. The birth of each child. The momentous events we participated in as a family. The growing up of our children as they moved through school until they left home ready to take on the world for themselves and with families of their own.
The togetherness of us all, so far apart. And the sadness when some of our family members took their final journey.
All that clutter, all those thoughts, and pictures flashed through my mind as I sat. I felt tears of happiness, as well as sadness as all the memories, replayed themselves.
Then it was over. I was sure there were more to be found, but it was time to move on. To my new home. To my new life. The one thing about a clutter of memories, even when organized, there is always room for more.
And you know what? Clutter is not so bad. The neat thing about it is that you occasionally get to stumble upon something that was forgotten. You can enjoy the finding and add it to those boxes, for these boxes always travel with you and you don’t have to pay to move them.
