To my things

Letting go is a funny old process. Holding each item in my hands, weighing its worth and whether I’m attached enough to keep it, or if releasing it will make me lighter. Sometimes both those things are true at the same time.

Things that held me safe, I am deeply grateful to them—like the first bed I bought for myself after a string of difficult relationships. The bed that held me during heartbreak, Covid, and three different flats.

I have felt for a while that she was getting a bit small, but how do you decide to move on when the current is perfectly comfortable? I don’t need it to be bigger; there’s only 5’3” of me—but I just want it. Am I allowed? Yes, I guess I am, because the new van, even though the space is tiny, has a huge bed, so yes, I guess I am.

There never is a good enough, perfect moment, but maybe the time is now.

The green drinks trolley I never needed but always loved for unexplained reasons. As it moved through flats with me, I would find a new use for it. What a pal—it carried wine initially, then my cosmetics, then plants, and now my herbal teas.

Letting go is a funny old process: it’s heavy and it’s light all at the same time. It hurts and it clears, sight unseen. Memories I didn’t realise I held. The time my flatmate and I stood on the dining room chairs to sand the bathroom ceiling, eating dust like crazy. The furry armchair someone on Facebook Marketplace practically begged me to buy—and how that totally completed my living room, the last to arrive and the first one to go.

The second screen I took from an old job and never returned, in a time of discontent and feeling underappreciated.

It’s curious to investigate attachments—the invisible strings of energy that live all around us, unconsciously, subconsciously. They pull sometimes, when they need maintenance, when we spill coffee over them. And we pull too, when we let that soft blanket wrap around us on a winter’s day. When we light the low lights to allow our eyesight to rest.

They hold us and we hold them, the invisible layers of warmth and affection between a soul and the material.

Letting go is a funny old process. It’s teaching me a new dimension of life and myself that I’ve not seen before. It’s shining a light on the unseen weight, for me to decide if it’s too heavy to carry or if it’s moving forward with me.

I believe energy is unlimited, but I also believe availability is not. Constrained to space and time as we are, is not a bad thing—but it needs attention, awareness, a willingness to manage that availability of space and time. To allow enough in and out to live in flow, to clear away debris and residue.

The chest of drawers I hand-painted with one of my closest friends many years ago. We don’t speak anymore. Those colours remind me of us, having fun, creating. So much love to her. I hope she’s doing amazingly. I hope she gets to shine her light and continue painting.

But these drawers—I have nothing else to store in them moving forward.

The watch my dad gifted me at 21, his own watch. A symbol of him, a torch being passed down when I moved across the ocean. A symbol of structure and timing. It got me to places on time for many years. And with time, I slowly stopped wearing it—it stopped feeling like me. Maybe I unconsciously realised I wanted to light my own torch. And now, deciding how to store this relic gives me anxiety. Why?

The invisible strings of the heart. The weightless weight of attachment.

Letting go is a funny old process. Items loved by others before, of unknown provenance, that have decided to spend some of their lifetime with me.

The dining table and chairs the previous tenant left at my old flat—it was the first time we had somewhere to gather all the flatmates together.

The wardrobe the previous tenant of this flat left behind—the one that housed all my clothes, so many of which I have now donated or sold. A wardrobe which, in one year, travelled from one room to another four times as I kept changing my sleeping arrangements. The wardrobe that is now staying for the new tenant, to faithfully serve this flat yet again.

There is more to say and more to thank. My plants, my plates, my wedding guest dresses.

But finally, I just want to thank me—the past versions of me that lived these lives and loved these items. The versions of me that had and held and were held. All of them beautiful, all of them brave, all of them needed.

And the version of me that lives now, that releases. The version of me that, once again, is choosing to put one foot in front of the other and step into the unknown. The version of me that is making space for a huge amount of blessings that future version of me will learn to receive, and have, and hold, and let go.

And to my items: may you live long (if that’s what you want), and may you be loved and held. I’ve tried to find you good homes. I hope it served for something.

So much love, and thank you. I release you and our attachments.

And so it is.