Lessons

I have been having conversations with a friend lately about life lessons, and how we learn them, and remembering an affirmation that I created long ago, "I choose to learn my lessons gently". So many times we think the only way to learn anything is with pain and incredible adversity. Been there, done that. I am hoping that for the rest of my life, the lessons come in small doses, gently. I don't want to stop growing, but I have had enough of adversity on a big scale.

Today my lessons are about letting go. My daughter has a great analogy that she uses often, "If I buy that bag, dress, car, whatever, I will be smart and pretty and happy and it will change my life". She just talked about that in her blog as she recounted a day off spent wandering around her town looking at Things. Unrelated to the lesson, or her thoughts, I am clearing out closets, practicing the letting go thing. I did it a bunch when I moved here to from Klamath, thinking I was doing a pretty good job of it. But now it's coming up again and I am cleaning closets and giving away stuff with a vengeance. Carloads to the thrift store. They have a big sign saying "absolutely no loads dropped off without approval" but I drive up in the Lexus and they smile and nod and take my boxes without a thought. But that's another lesson to ponder. My attachment to luxury.

Then again, maybe not, maybe it's all related somehow, my attachment to that "thing" luxury. Today I cleared out shoes and purses. I even have the Bare Trap velvet shoes I bought in 1978. So hot. and they are still hot. And my feet have aged and somehow they don't fit well. ah well, and no, Melody, they didn't end up in the box yet. But the box is full. There are several hundred dollars worth of really good shoes, and great leather bags in that box, shoes and bags that I wanted really badly to make my life better, to feel the soft leather and have the label there and to somehow feel like I was OK. with a purse, for pete's sake? So hundreds of dollars of "stuff" that I probably charged on some credit card to feel good about myself are in that box, the box I am carting off to the thrift shop today.

Hopefully, the lesson learned, is that I really don't need it. I really don't. And part of my life lessons have to do with managing my life and my finances. Somehow looking at the valueless dollar value represented by the contents in this box hit me abruptly in the gut.