Friday, April 14, 2017

From Things to Memories

I'm going through my house with a fine-toothed comb right now.  Sounds easy, except imagine I moved my parents' house into my house over 9 years ago and so combined it has over 40 years of "things" in it.

I'm getting ready for a neighborhood garage sale, even though after the last 2 I told myself I would never, ever do a garage sale again lol.

Last one.  (I promise?)

But, I am going through a phase in my life where I'm moving away from keeping everything to more towards realizing memories are more important.

I collected and kept way too many things all my life (now don't call the cops, I'm not THAT bad, I don't need to be on that tv show Hoarders), and it had not been easy to make decisions on my parents' things all these years, either.

But now - I am realizing that "things" (even from our past) don't provide us inner peace.

But I digress....

So, as I'm going through every inch of my house, I see some items tucked behind a desk. One of the items is a huge piece of rolled up paper.  What the heck is that?

It was the FIRST state title tourney I won!  Wow - look at that!



I actually had to look up the year:  2011.  That's the year I won the ACS Texas State Women's Singles!  Here is my long recap of it.  It was an extremely emotional win for me for many reasons and extremely memorable.  I can picture the last shot and my reaction of falling to the ground as I type this!

The bracket is actually very large.  See a pic of me holding it near the bottom of the recap.

But, after I took the photos of the paper bracket for this blog article, I then placed it snugly in my recycling bin.   

This action shows how things change.  I kept the bracket because it was so dang amazing and memorable for me, and yet I found it dusty behind a desk.  Unrolled for YEARS.  I didn't even realize or recognize what it was.

That amazing win still means the world to me and I enjoyed re-reading the recap today.  However, the physical paper copy of that bracket is now in the recycling dumpster.

I still have my memories.  :)

(and it's cleaner behind that desk)

5 comments:

Babylon Brother said...

What you are doing is awesome. I envy you so much for having the willpower to keep moving ahead with your goal of reducing clutter. I can see why you kept the huge bracket. But unless you're going to put it up in your recreation room, it's time for it to go. But I'm glad you took a photo of it.

Melinda said...

Thank you! I thought it would be tough a first, but it's becoming more easy as tome goes on. Reducing clutter has been helpful in many aspects!

Anonymous said...

I applaud you. It all hits us at different times in our lives and for different reasons. The need to reduce clutter so that we can see today a bit more clearly and the path to tomorrow will seem a touch brighter. Mine came when life recently dealt me a huge curve ball in terms of a health problem. Suddenly "keeping things" didn't seem all that important to me any longer. I realized that I have my memories too. Like you.

Melinda said...

Sorry you are going through some health issues. You are correct- different reasons can increase our "okayness" with decluttering. I'm sure there are more I hadn't thought of.

Janet said...

Thought that looked like my handwriting.... ;) I will never forget that moment!! It was pure beauty to watch and share with you!! Love you!!! <3