Emotional Clearing House Project
At seventy years of age, the end of 2023 saw me setting out to make space in my home’s storage areas. My husband and I weren’t running out of storage space, but in an effort to help our adult children should either my husband or I be out of the picture – which of course will happen eventually – we dragged out the under-the-stairs storage bins filled with photos, mementos, and journals to lessen the emotional impact on our adult daughters when the time does come, whether tomorrow or many years from now.
Doing so meant the emotions would no doubt come barreling down on me. Boy did they.
As many of you know, I was the caregiver for my father after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When caring for my father after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, I kept meticulous journals on the progression of the disease from which he died in October 2007. I kept those journals so I could provide in-the-moment accurate updates to my brother and sister so those journal entries were VERY detailed about incidents I would rather not revisit.
But revisit them I did, and although the emotions that came through were raw, letting them bombard and fill me was a necessary step so that in the future our daughters would not have to wonder what they should do with all the anguish-filled words I put down on paper in those journals. You see, once I recently re-read my journals, I shredded them, knowing I didn’t need them for future reference. Over the course of several days, I digested their emotional impact and then eliminated them – remembering all that occurred, but not needing to save such records for decades to come. Bags and bags of shredded and disposed business effects and medical records were a gift I consciously gave to our daughters well in advance so they would not be put through the decision-making process of trying to figure out what the heck to do with Mom’s emotional ramblings and Grandma and Grampa’s business and health records that have been in my possession for so many years. My husband and I have already streamlined our own personal business effects so although at our passing our daughters will have to pour over them and address what is necessary at that time, at least they won’t have the much older generation’s business matters with which to contend.
But along with the somewhat devastating emotions experienced while going through the storage bins came joyful emotions in discovering decades of old keepsakes that shed a light on who my parents and grandparents were in the 1800s and 1900s. The most cherished keepsake were my parents’ love letters to each other a week before they got married in the 1940s. They were so in love with each other and did not hesitate to put that love into words as a gift to each other a few days before their May 26th wedding day. I made copies of those letters for our adult children and my siblings. Needless to say, good vibes prevailed in our hearts as a result!
Making space for storage purposes – and for emotional purposes – is an arduous task but the cleansing benefits can very much be worth the effort. I made space for the emotions to enter and pass through me and somehow or another, I survived that herculean task. Keep in mind, this is not a job for the faint of heart, but if you have it in you, you just might feel as lighthearted and/or relieved as I do now. And for me, that makes the task’s anguish a fading memory rather than a landmine waiting to be discovered.
Living: the ultimate team sport 