As the executor of my mom's estate (such as it was), and also frankly because I am a junkie for "the past," I am the repository of family papers, photos, condolence cards, newspaper articles, yearbooks, birth certificates. This week I've been alone and have taken on the project of going through all of it -- ALL OF IT -- and tossing what should/can go, and organizing what's left into useable units of history.
Such a project it is. It is like slogging through the mud of bad memories, sometimes....other times, it is just darned sad, as it was this afternoon, when I could not get through all the condolence cards sent to my mom after my dad died (1979). Wow, people said some incredible things about him.
A couple of times this week, I have looked up from my labor, and thought to myself: I need to take a break from this! It's too much! It's not normal to be thinking about the past all the time!
And yet it is apparently what I need to do, I feel this so strongly -- in order to move on.
Some of this stuff clearly needs to be tossed in the garbage. Some of it needs to be sent to other people in the family. Some of it needs to be transformed into scrapbooks and histories (ah! a new project!).
I have a strong feeling that this is the process I need to go through (and out the other side) in order to get where I'm going next. Don't know what/where that is, how it will feel, what it will look like.
But I'm going to be 60 in less than a year, and it's time to consider how I'm going to spend this next portion of my life.
Such a project it is. It is like slogging through the mud of bad memories, sometimes....other times, it is just darned sad, as it was this afternoon, when I could not get through all the condolence cards sent to my mom after my dad died (1979). Wow, people said some incredible things about him.
A couple of times this week, I have looked up from my labor, and thought to myself: I need to take a break from this! It's too much! It's not normal to be thinking about the past all the time!
And yet it is apparently what I need to do, I feel this so strongly -- in order to move on.
Some of this stuff clearly needs to be tossed in the garbage. Some of it needs to be sent to other people in the family. Some of it needs to be transformed into scrapbooks and histories (ah! a new project!).
I have a strong feeling that this is the process I need to go through (and out the other side) in order to get where I'm going next. Don't know what/where that is, how it will feel, what it will look like.
But I'm going to be 60 in less than a year, and it's time to consider how I'm going to spend this next portion of my life.
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