Closets Always Tell a Story

Heal­ing is a fun­ny thing.

The term implies that there is a def­i­nite end point…but I’m not entire­ly sure this is true.

This Sun­day, we will shove all of our earth­ly pos­ses­sions into a crammed Uhaul and move to a new home, a whop­ping 1.6 miles away.

So I’ve been packing.

And pack­ing.

And pack­ing some more.

And it has been weird. And emo­tion­al. And quiet.

A lot has changed under the roof of this house.

And all of a sud­den, amidst box­es, dust bun­nies, and the con­tents of my clos­et, I found myself sit­ting on my bed­room floor, sur­round­ed by my for­mer life.

Run­ning tights,

horse­back rid­ing helmets,

teacher clothes,

two-piece swim­suits,

choir uni­forms,

17 t‑shirts from Wolf­trap Ele­men­tary School,

awards, cer­tifi­cates, ribbons,

and my expired passport.

And as I sat there, tak­ing it all in, I was real­ly rather dumb­found­ed by the mag­ni­tude of it all.

Odd, because those items are from my life.

But maybe this was the first time that I saw it all together.

Maybe this was the first time that I felt the loss of what was in one fell swoop.

And I sat there, quietly.

What do you do with box­es upon box­es of a life you don’t know if you will ever live again? Do you give them all away, or do you hold on and con­tin­u­al­ly relive the mem­o­ries? As we heal, do we tru­ly leave all wounds behind? Or do we con­tin­ue to car­ry them through life?

So many questions.

These ques­tions, and oth­ers, have stayed on the fore­front of my mind for the last 2 weeks.

I’ve pon­dered.

And noo­dled.

And day­dreamed, as I do.

The truth is, I don’t have the answers now.

That’s ok. I don’t need them.

For where would we be, with­out unan­swered ques­tions? How would we try new things and forge new paths?

More ques­tions.

Some­day soon I’ll look back at that moment with grat­i­tude. I’ll look back and smile, know­ing that the sto­ries in my clos­et encour­aged me to grow.

To find new passions.

To dive head­first into my new career.

To make new memories.

Maybe I already am.

And as I smush our belong­ings into the truck this week­end, I’ll be lug­ging along the cher­ished sto­ries in my clos­et. I’ll remem­ber what was and look for­ward to what is to come.

I’ll take a deep breath, and con­tin­ue to heal.