pass it on

have you ever hung on to something purely for the sake of sentimentality?

i do all the time.  back when my husband and i first started dating, i had a large, clear vase that served as our "memories bucket."  i began dropping in ticket stubs from our first, second, third, etc. movie, and soon added remnants from shows, games, and vacations.  it wasn't long before the container was filled with dried petals from the first dozen roses he gave me, scraps of notes and messages, postcards and souvenir pennies from our road trips, beaded bracelets we had been "tricked" into buying while in the bahamas.

when we moved into our house, the vase became a box that eventually graduated to a drawer in my bedside table.  now it holds trinkets from our travels, soaps from the b&bs we've visited, valentine's day messages, cards.. it's already overflowing and difficult to close once opened.

there are so many things like these that accumulate over the years, and somehow feels as if it all happened overnight, almost like i didn't know i was collecting something until i realized i had a collection.  i used to wonder how we'd fill this house and now have days where i feel like i don't even know where to begin to tackle the clutter.  and why do we keep these possessions?  simply because we don't know how to say goodbye to them.

case in point: my parents kept my old bike for me in their garage long after i'd graduated high school and college.  last fall, they brought it over to our house where it ended up sitting on our porch for over 5 months.  while my in-laws were visiting last weekend, they asked me what i wanted to do with it since they had the bike rack set up on their car.  i hadn't even thought about it.  what did i want to do with it?  sure, it was a memento from my childhood (which is why my parents had kept it so long in the first place), but it would probably just continue to sit there on the porch, not being ridden, for i certainly wouldn't ride a turquoise/purple/hot pink bike fit for an elementary schooler around my neighborhood.  so i made a split-second decision to send it off with my father-in-law to see if there would be any takers at his workplace.

sure enough, his coworker approached him as he was unloading it and said her 10-year-old neighbor would enjoy the bike, especially since her family didn't have enough money to purchase one.

when my husband told me this, i was overcome with joy.  i remembered that the day my in-laws had carted off the bike, he had been asking me if i was okay with parting with it.  i shrugged, thinking someone could benefit from it, but finding out later that it actually had couldn't have felt more right.

as i grow older, i'm gradually learning the value of letting go of things.  yes, there are some i will probably never give up, like my memories bucket-turned box-turned drawer, but others that can (and probably should be) imparted to others.  consider this: what can you give today?

~update 3/24/11:
i was told when the girl received my bike, she was so happy that she cried.  i am overjoyed!