Letting Go....

It seems as if everyone I know is in a state of loss.... Jobs, homes, income, lifestlyle, pets, family members, mobility, cognative function, health... With so many people losing so many things, doesn't it seem logical that we would want to HOLD ON to the things we can?  Hmmmm... Why can't we lose the things we want to lose, like weight, gray hair, bad memories, painful and ackward situations.  It would be so much easier if those things just disappeared. 

My mom and stepdad and my 2 year old niece have been living with us.  Having a two year old around all the time takes me back to that person I used to be when my kids were two.  I remember now how harassed I was when the boys were little.  How hard it was with them so close in age, and how I couldn't wait for them to outgrow another difficult phase.  Now they are both taller than me, and I look at them and wonder where the time went.  In 6 years Kayleigh will be off to college.  We will be empty nesters...

No one WANTS to spend time with me any more except Kayleigh.  The boys are here, but usually in their room watching tv or on some technoligical gadgetry of some kind.  I REFUSE to get my kids cell phones.  Austin was the only senior to raise his hand in school when the teacher asked who didn't have a cell phone.  He said he felt like a big DER...  I say technology is turning us all into a bunch of unsociable idiots.  I spend maybe 5 hours a week on the computer.  I check email and once in a while post on my blog or facebook.  I suppose if I had one of those newfangled phones with internet and all the apps, I would be on line more often.  I am kind of thankful for my old jankey Nokia from 7 years ago.  I have dropped it a hundred times and it still keeps working.  But it also enables me to have a fairly technology free life.  When I get in the car with my kids, we TALK... What a concept.  We listen to Alice Radio in the morning sometimes, and laugh along to the crazy talk with Sara and Vinnie, but basically, it is great time for us to chat, about our lives, and things that we have going on.  No one is texting friends of searching on their ipod.  Family dinner nites are sacred in our house.  Tuesday and every other Sunday is family dinner nite.  All of us are here together around the table, eating, yelling, carrying on and just being a big ole loud blended family.  I like to call us a modern day Waltons.  We usually play a game after dinner, or watch a movie.  Video games and internet are banned on family nites, and on weeknights in general for homework purposes. We only have one working computer that barely limps along, so the kids are allowed to use it only for homework.  The boys tend to obsess on the games otherwise and spend a lot of time on x-box live and WOW if I don't monitor it. 

SO what does all this babble have to do with loss...  I guess as I look at it, I am seeing ways that I have lost... contact with my kids, and good friends.  People I see rarely because we are "too busy with our lives".  I have been cleaning out the studio and turning it from a crap collecting room to an actual studio.  The plan is to have art friends over for regular get togethers and make things from all the cool stuff I have collected.  I want to start collecting good memories with family and friends.  My family and friends mean more to me than stuff...  but in the face of so much loss over the years, I found myself collecting little things here and there, until I had a TON of things that filled my space, and life, but not my heart.  They say that clutter is emotional baggage...  I say it is more than that...  For us altered artists, it is also stifled creativity.  All these things we collect to one day use to make something cool and artsy.  I had a room full of that.  Now I am getting it to a place where I have a lot of supplies, but they are all organized, and put away in a way that I can use them to create, rather than collect them to maybe do something with one day...

Purging is hard for me.  But nonetheless, I take a truckload to the store every week of things I am getting rid of.  And adding another run every few weeks to the depot to get rid of the artsy stuff the closet can't use.  I get a sense of freedom, a big release every time I get rid of something.   And I am loving all the negative space in my house!  It is like a Flashdance moment "What a feeling!"  I am getting there, a little more every week.