Over these past 5 years, I have learned a lot about the world, people and most importantly myself. I feel like I have grown enormously over these years and as time goes on I know it will only grow more and become an even better person. My world has become significantly simplified and Carrie, while at first hesitant, embraced my new found ways and eventually jumped on with me. Carrie has been so supportive since her and I met. As some know, I try to make my life simple and by doing so I have made my world all the more comfortable, however this came with a price. I found something to help about five years ago and while guilt plagued my first few years, I am now at peace with my
decisions. (sounds all zennish, weird)
For the past few years, I would fight with myself constantly and force myself into beliefs and therefore pushing my guilt further and further through the roof. I would lie to people, just because I knew that is what they wanted to hear, I began to have an internal war day in and day out.
I grew up a certain way, my family, particularly my mom always had a strong belief and was often vocal. My dad on the other hand has always been fairly open minded, nonetheless was always strong in faith. We rarely talked of faith, I think for the most part it was just expected, likewise it was ingrained in me as well, in my mind there is no other way.
(Personally, I think faith is great, our plan for Averi is to have her baptized, but as you can imagine, let her feel and think the way she wants. I definitely am not that guy to push a feeling on someone.)
After years of detriment these past two years have been so much better. I realized how much I was holding onto, both physically and mentally. I found myself cluttering my mind and life with stuff because I just didn't want to let go. I had stuff from high school and earlier, sitting in storage around the house and in my mind, needless to say I was cluttering my life. I now have a small, four inch by four inch tin box that houses everything. It was a lot easier than most would think and in all honesty I feel better.
With that said, this was one thing Carrie fought the most, while I never forced her to let anything go, there were several advertent remarks. Times I knew new I could make the most progress was when her mom would give her stuff boxes of things from her childhood, Carrie would gasp ask the rhetorical question, "who keeps that?". Eventually Carrie and I went through every piece of, well stuff, she had and narrowed it all down to a small box.
During the somewhat painful process of elimination, I got to learn a lot about Carrie and I think Carrie had fun with it eventually. She got to tell me more about her life than I ever really knew. I think if it were her doing it by herself, there would have been a lot more boxes kept. :) Carrie and I have both continued to rid our lives of the stuff that is replaceable.
The next step for me was and still is to keep my mind clutter free as well. Through writing and daily brain dumps as I will refer to them as, I have helped myself and likely those around me from my inner mayhem. Instead of ridding my self of certain feelings, I embrace them. Instead of always trying to make myself happy, I let it be. Sometimes, I feel shitty, sometimes I feel angry and sometimes I feel happy, while I like to be happy, what is so wrong with being pissed or sad?
I often would loathe in self pity or feel completely guilty for being angry at someone. I found out, that is just how it is. Three years ago I would forget that, with every blink, with every step, life is moving on and all of my feelings would soon wane too. Today, sometimes I am just pissed, sometimes for the moment sad and the moment I began to embrace, I began to understand
those emotions a bit more.
Anger, guilt, sadness, happiness or whatever it may be will nonetheless dissipate so while in
those states of emotion, I bask in them, if Think about them, think about why because within
minutes it probably will not be there for long. Needless to say, while it may be hard for some to understand this, it has made perfect sense to me.
There is one thing I have notice during my de-cluttering lifestyle, it is a constant practice, taking
days off require many catch up sessions. In many ways I like that part. I like that this is a daily part of my life. Before, I would only use things at certain times, or when I needed it or wondered why it wasn't there when I needed it, which led me to guilt.
As I write this, I look across the street and see what has made so much of me, me. I appreciate it, but for the first time I am looking back at it and not feeling any guilt.
