If I were to write about what I did last summer, it would be titled something like “Let Go.” 

I spent the summer months last year sorting years of flotsam. I thought I had already done this before I moved in 2017 – when I left my home but also helped sell my sister’s house. There were two households to sort, give away, and sell what could be sold. There were also tons of feelings. 

I was moving out of a house I’d lived in with an ex-husband. I was selling the home of my sister who had died that spring. Two major loss events were happening at once and I was limping through them. It was at times hard to decide what to keep and what to give away. 

There were things in my sister’s home that became solutions to my divorce situation. My experience of divorce meant empty rooms where things were taken by my spouse. In so many ways this was good – and offered me creative spaces for living toward a future I didn’t yet know. 

When my sister died shortly after my divorce was final, there were difficult next steps. She lived in a dear house in another city. We were so grateful to find a company that helped us sort through her things, arrange to move them to Indiana, sell what we couldn’t or didn’t want to keep and give away even more. It was a hard and emotional process all by itself. The things I kept though, helped me carry on – because they had been dear to her, and they offered me the furniture I needed to start over. 

Fast forward to 2022 – marrying again offered another form of fresh start. ToWe decided to move from the house I had loved to a completely new place. To start again. Together. Once we chose where we were going, I began sorting again. Some days this was more difficult – because it called me to be ruthless about things I didn’t need even if they were dear to me. It was time to let go of things. Some things were easy; I didn’t use them much or any more. Other things were harder because I had some tie to them about my family – many of whom where gone.

Yet, I had chosen a new life. 

It was time to carry less into that new life in ways that would bring in creativity and possibility. To do so with curiosity. 

So, I spent the summer letting go of things. 

Lots of things. What I’ve discovered is that while I thought they were important, I do not miss them. Rarely since being in a new place, have I wondered where they are, or thought “I wish I still had…” or found myself looking for something. 

There is a great gift in traveling lighter. I have discovered that there are attachments that perhaps didn’t serve me. Some were worthy of releasing to make “room” not just in the way of closet space, but in the way of internal space too. That’s what I mean by traveling lighter. 

Now I look around at my home and know that I’m in a newly creative season. It is a season that comes from loss, letting go and willingness to begin again. Letting go has taught me that there is a place in the process of releasing that opens me to curiosity.  

What has seemed hard to let go of but turned out to be a gift because you did? 

What material things are around you that you no longer use but someone else could benefit from?