Subtracting Addition

Trophy Goals, Photo from BradensEye Archives of a throwback to her youthful age of excelling + taking its mantra into my present moment

Liberation from superfluousness is ideal. Shelving the notion of letting go simply leads to endless woes. Keepsakes of some sorts can be indulgent reminiscence. However, we’re really good at saving an exaggerated amount comparative to what we might truly continually use. Fear not that I’m training my eyes on you alone, as I’m one of the grandest culprits. So, please don’t confuse this as judgment! It’s, honestly, more that I’ve been challenging myself over the modern aging realm of my forties into fifties to own the conflict of why the heck would, should I be holding the mountain of stuff in my personal midst if it’s generally tucked away. There’s an art form to subtracting addition I’ve encountered while choosing to live with a newer mindfulness grail of only harvesting and harnessing what is essentially joyful plus beneficial.

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give — together, we made

Something greater from the difference. ~Albert Rios, When Giving Is All We Have

Recently, I spent two weeks braving my intimate storage wars on an accumulation date with my history. I accomplished about eighty percent of a project that began brewing in my brain for our 2020 isolationism. Most people reading this have a home of larger housing to a smaller apartment variety. Since latter 2006, I’ve kept a 6x12 foot basic bottom-barrel sweet mom and pop storage unit. Subsequently, I’ve traveled for work or leisure with typically a small suitcase or kids’ school backpack, sometimes two max. Our human persistence of putting bits to bobs in corners, on shelves, tucked in every cupboard, up the gills of garage angles, in attics, or flapping beyond the rims is mild to overt insanity. Yet, the cleaning fulfillment that comes from releasing items to the universal land of caring donation centers, a safe demolition shredder domain, or responsible trash collection is pointedly freeing.

Once upon a time, I was considered “Best All-Around” during that dynamo era in high school that I scored a spot on the cheer squad. Staking that same claim to fame with unhitching aplenty from my contemporary collections amassed was the growing aim of the last year of my life. I’ve long materialized a hefty cadre of books, art, tons of trinkets, trunks of clothing, and the ‘dreaded’ miscellaneous. But, if you want a…