Have had a post percolating around in my brain for the last several days, so I thought I should make space for an update. Dad seems OK over the phone but is saying he knows he needs somebody with him. Won't be long before we are there. Busy times at my current house.
Packing, packing, packing. And trying
to cook ALL THE THINGS in my freezer. And try to be at peace with the resulting chaos that happens when I am not tidying up everything else (see photo lol). And reducing. Ah, getting rid of
stuff – it is not easy for this Cancer who tends to put emotional attachments on
things, and I have never been pushed to purge this deeply before. In my past moves, I haven’t had to worry
about space and just packed until I was done.
Now I am putting most of my life into a 10 x 15 box, so the process has begun of deciding what to let go of.
One of those things is going to be my desk. I haven’t cleaned it out in quite some time -
I tend to just pack up what is in the cubbies and leave the drawers as they
are. Not this time….
I have gone through this stuff at some point in the past and
obviously decided to keep what I still have, but this time felt really
different. It isn’t just because I am
trying to crunch space. I was also shocked
to find out how much stuff I plain old don’t have emotional attachments to anymore
and fascinated by how that lack represented a tangible example of the paradigm
shift I have been undergoing ever since discovering
Unconditional Parenting and
unschooling. So many of my old papers were nothing more than a bunch of
academic back patting or evidence of making the popularity cut. Now that I see so much of what happens in
public schools as damaging for children, much of this stuff feels more like an
embarrassment than a keepsake.
Some examples:
Program for the Pre-Prom Fashion Show – Really? So glad I was deemed pretty enough and
popular enough to participate. Ugh.
Newspaper clipping naming me as one of the high scorers on
the PSAT – Great, I learned how to cram for a test with an exact set of
parameters, and more importantly, I was recognized for it and my mom had
something to show our extended family.
Program from the Ephebian Ceremony – This one is my favorite
because I had to actually apply for it but could have cared less. It was just supposed to look good on college
applications and hey, it gets your picture in the newspaper. More stuff for my mom to frame. And it might as well be the teacher version
of a popularity contest.
Why am I being so hard on that ex overachiever that was
me? I do have empathy for the old
me. She was just doing what she was
raised to do in our society that seems hell bent on raising Praise
Junkies. I am just glad I am not that
person anymore. Most people go through
their lives never thinking much about how manipulative common parenting
practices and most schools are, but savvy businesses have been realizing for
some time
how problematic this type of mindset is. In my life, I am thankful for the many parenting educators,
bloggers and authors of books who have opened my mind to seeing things a
different way.
But shouldn’t I cherish these things as part of my memories and
be proud of my achievements? Many things
in my life have been forgotten while those memories are still there, so I don’t
think they are in much danger, and if they have to leave at some point (like what I am watching happen to my father) to make way for
keeping other things, I would rather remember how it
felt to run barefoot through the forest in Yosemite and be tumbled in the Carpinteria
waves while bodysurfing, or the first steps of my children and the first hug with
my husband. And as far as “achievements”
go, I am reminded of something Krishnamurti said:
In this example, I see school as the sick society, so my
“good grades” feel pretty meaningless to me at this point. I was very good at figuring out how teachers
test, what they were looking for and how to memorize lots of material over
short times. I rarely had any true
interest in the subjects or remembered much afterwards. There were exceptions for me, mainly in
literature and science, but for the most part, I became a master crammer. Don’t get me wrong, I am not down on
education, and I think there are great teachers out there who really care
about their students as well as some innovative schools trying out new things,
but for the most part, I feel the public school system, at least in the US, has
inherent flaws. Grading systems,
mandatory testing, reward programs, poor student to teacher ratios and dividing
children into same age classrooms only scratch the surface of some of the
issues I see as problematic.
But this isn’t an essay about what I think is wrong with
schools. I am writing this post to
process how much I have changed, how much I have let go of the expectation to
be measured, the drive to do well on some standardized scale and the desire to
be recognized for it. I am sure there is
plenty of that stuff still internalized in me.
My ego is alive and well lol, but these days I am trying to keep my
focus on doing things I truly enjoy and following my interests where they will
lead. I certainly don’t want to be measured
for it or be compared to how well somebody else is doing the same things. And if somebody happens to notice something I
do and appreciate it, that’s awesome, but I don’t want that to be the reason I make choices in my life.
I love the ideas of thinking about what brings you joy and
what supports your higher self when going through clutter. I thought this quotation captured a good part of the process:
I would rephrase this saying with “hands and head”. Might not flow as well, but both are
true. Clutter can be mental as well as
physical. I hope to be always changing
and looking for ways to walk more in alignment with my higher self, learning from
the past and reaching for the future. So,
to rephrase my vision with positive language instead of “don’t”s…
I want to do what brings me joy for no other reason.
I want to follow my joy without caring if I am doing it “right”
or even “well” by somebody else’s standards.
I want to follow my joy without caring if I am doing it
better than anybody else.
I want to follow my joy not caring if anybody notices.
I was actually thinking about these things not long ago as I
took my first art lesson, wondering if I would ever share my art with the
world, wondering if I would care if it got criticized, wondering if I would
hope it spoke to people. I think I would
be happy to know people related to it, but at the same time, I don’t want to
*try* to be relatable. I think the
moment one steps away from any of the above “wants” is the moment one begins to
deviate from authentic artistic expression.
And I think this can be applied to just about anything.
Life is art. I want
to create mine as authentically as possible.
This is what getting rid of clutter has taught me today.
