That pesky feeling of being someone other than me…

Last week, I started to feel really down. I needed a break. A break from work, a break from life, a break from reality. I went to the e-library and checked out a book. It was the first in a series, and it had been there for a while, so I figured it was no big deal and I checked out the first book, leaving the others for when I finished. It was a silly chic-lit book, one of those silly fantasy stories (not girl porn, but very chaste wizard romance). When I completed it 24 hours later, the next two were checked out. Someone had swooped in and decided to check out the second two while waiting for me to return book 1. But I wasn’t done with that escape from reality. I needed another book…so I put books 2 and 3 on hold, and went looking…

I stumbled upon The Year of Less by Cait Flanders. This wasn’t going to be chic lit, it was a memoir, but I thought it might be a fun little look into someone else’s life. A moment to be a voyeur into someone else’s journey into owning less. Little did I know that it would trigger some deep emotions in me. The story is just as it sounds…a story of a woman who decided to give up shopping, purges her material items and…well…finds herself in the process.

Let me say, I am fantastic at purging. I am really very good at getting rid of most of things I don’t use or need. I am relentless when it comes to books (that I buy because they look great and then I don’t read them) and I am excellent and clearing out my wardrobe (I add nothing without removing something else). I can go through my belongings and get rid of much of what no longer serves me. Yet…I still find myself shopping and buying things I don’t use all that often.

The planner is one of my favorite things to try. If I find the perfect planner, with the perfect options, I will get my life in order. This is my story. (Note: This is only one of the stories I tell myself).

Flanders writes, “Decluttering and purging 70 percent of my belongings came with different lessons. I realized I had spent 29 years of my life doing and buying whatever I could to be someone I thought I should be.” OUCH.

She goes on from there, “I kept so many things, and consumed the wrong things, all because I never felt like I was good enough. I wasn’t smart enough or professional enough or talented enough or creative enough. I didn’t trust that who I was or than what I brought to the table in any situation was already unique, so I bought things that could make me better.” DOUBLE OUCH.

I walked into the weekend, not yet ready to purge (again), but giving some serious consideration to why I was holding on to the things that I kept, and feeding a desire that sometimes just bought stuff. I looked around my room and saw the many unfinished projects, the books I tell myself I want to read, the clothes I love in the moment then never wear. I looked at my hard drive and the thousands of photos I will never revisit, the files I will never look at again.

Why am I keeping all of these things? Why am I holding on to all of this stuff?

I walked away, taking a break from social media, going so far as to let my phone select a new very complicated password and telling it not to remember it (hopefully to dissuade myself from going, just to check), so that I can find a way of trying to get healthy around my relationship with it. The all too easy interaction that would tell my brain I had connection, when my heart really felt like I was losing connection so fast. I am struggling with choosing to go back through my belongings.

I don’t want to face the unfinished barely started quilt. I don’t want look at my attempt at painting rocks. I don’t want to lament at spending thousands of dollars on photography equipment I only use sometimes, but have some good ideas for. I don’t want to look at the paints and canvases I will only rarely use and never share with others.

And yet…I need to.

10 years ago, I started seminary. I had finally reached a point where I had held on to so much self-loathing that I felt broken. I opened myself to really getting help and really following my heart toward a call I felt deeply. I was ready to heal and to learn to find what called to my heart.

Over the last 10 years, I have followed my heart into careers, lessons, places I never imagined I would go. I have made some of my dreams come true, yet…I still find myself holding back. I still tell myself I don’t deserve better. I am still figuring out my boundaries and what makes my heart sing, and I am still beating myself up when I try something and it doesn’t work.

I don’t think I am ready for a year of less. I don’t want to give up shopping, I don’t want to give up traveling. I am also not ready for a year of YES like Shonda Rhimes, where I open myself up to trying all the things. I am, however, ready to hold myself accountable for looking into why I am holding on to things that I no longer feel are me (maybe they never were). I may not be ready to let go, but I am certainly ready to look at why I am holding on.