Dear Jacky,
Something about this time of year has me cleaning out my house once again. This time last year I wrote about cleaning out my house and hanging paintings on the walls. I still have some paintings laid out in my office, yet to be framed. Left in a place for when I had time. This year has been one of the fastest years of my life. This cleaning binge started because I can’t find a Target table runner I bought that has the best fall colors. It’s my favorite runner and I can’t find it anywhere. It has had me go through every closet and holiday bin in this house. I still haven’t found it but I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff. There’s something about letting go of physical items and cleaning out the clothes and things you used to need that you don’t anymore that feels cathartic to me.
I’ve made it at points this fall to digging into my “junk room”…where boxes go that have never been unpacked between moves. It’s where I stick old books when I need room on my office bookshelf. It holds textbooks from my teaching days that I don’t know what to do with. It has bins where I packed up my office during COVID. I’m embarrassed to admit the dates of some of those packed boxes that still haven’t been fully unpacked. It’s an out of sight out of mind room. It has all the things I’m going to put on Facebook Marketplace ”one day”.
There are recent items I’ve run across like the vision board I never finished even though I cut out all the things. None of the things felt like the right thing so it sat there for most of the year undone. I’ve thrown out old vision boards that just don’t inspire me anymore. You see visions can change. Things that I thought fit the life I wanted at the beginning of the year just don’t anymore. That’s the thing about growing…you outgrow things and people and things that used to serve you just don’t anymore. It’s the somewhat sad part about growing is that you have to leave things behind and sometimes you don’t fit places you used to. The growth has been rapid. I don’t think I’m the same person I was at the beginning of this year or even this summer.
That’s the thing about seasons. They can feel like they last forever and they can also change in the blink of an eye.
In my effort to clean out my house, I’m finding things that remind me of old seasons of life. That’s the thing about seasons. They can feel like they last forever and they can also change in the blink of an eye. Last fall I wrote about my drive back from Boston and how I realized I was moving out of a season of survival. A season that lasted far too long and tested me beyond measure. I don’t have a name for this season or what it is even a year later but it is good. It’s a transformational season. It’s a very fast season. I can barely keep up after sitting in a stagnant place for what felt like an eternity.
This weekend as I was looking for things to throw into another Goodwill bag my eyes caught the bookshelf. My mother always taught me that in moments where things feel like they are spiraling out of control that I should focus on the things I can control. So at the onset of very traumatic and devastating circumstances that were thrust upon me I took the reminder to look for things that I could control and latched onto them. One of the things I latched onto were books. I always loved reading as a child. I don’t really like fiction books that much. I like books about “real stuff”. I like books that teach me something. I like books that encourage me, that make me better, that challenge me. I set out that year to read a book a month. I believe I read 18 books that year. I would read through an entire author’s repertoire and repeat that author after author.
They served me well and they brought me to a life greater than I could imagine but it is time for them to move to a new home where they can serve a better purpose than collecting dust.
But during that season of recovery, it was brutal. I clung to books with the words I needed to hear. One of the author’s I came across was Mandy Hale and I read through each of these books. I haven’t opened them since that year but from what I remember they are memoirs of her dating life and have a very independent, strong woman flavor to them. Books about her journey through singleness and the things she learned and the truths you may need to hear as a single woman. It was uplifting and empowering and filled with hope in a time when I had to lean on other’s hope because mine was weak. These books got me through a very rough time. They were what I needed in that season and while I’ve gone through a very different kind of break up this year. I just don’t need these books anymore but I don’t want to throw them in a Goodwill bag just yet. I’d rather pass them on to someone else who needs these words right now. If you or a friend is sitting in the middle of devastation, shoot me a DM I’d love to give these books to you.
You’re going to make it. You get to take what happened to you and you get to write the story you want. You get to take your circumstances and you get to choose what you’ll do with them. This season will pass like all the seasons do. I hope for you it passes quickly but if it doesn’t I assure you, it is showing you that you are stronger than you ever imagined.
It feels wild but it is long past time to let go of all the things that got me through that season. They served me well and they brought me to a life greater than I could imagine but it is time for them to move to a new home where they can serve a better purpose than collecting dust.
The Seasons They Do End,
Molly