Letting go…of stuff being held on for nostalgic reasons

I am not exactly a hoarder. But I admit to being rather sentimental. Things have meanings, objects have stories, old letters make me smile, greeting cards from first grade are still around (ahem… not in my house, but my mother’s house).

I hold on to stuff. In an emotional hoarder kinda way.

The past is the past and that’s exactly where I would like it to be. Why then am I holding to the nostalgia via objects? Places have been visited; experiences have been experienced; sights have been seen. If they do truly matter, they will always remain in the mind and heart. Do I really need the objects to sit on my bookshelf reminding me of the person I used to be and no longer am? Is the inability to part with these objects my inability to let go?

Take for instance the numerous African artifacts in our home. The time spent in Africa represents an adventurous, spirited phase of my life. And maybe that’s what I have been holding on to for all these years.  

True I gave away numerous masks some years ago. But I looked at the beautifully carved combs, antique ceremonial spoons and remembered my adventures in this continent far away. I stroked the smooth ebony bowl and smiled at the quaint antique figurine. I was nostalgic. I was wistful. These objects represented a part of my life that I would never go back to. Even if I were to visit the very same places even, it would never be at the same level of adventure and exploration.

And guess what…I was quite okay with that. I had moved on; life had moved on; and there was little time for nostalgia or staying put in a nostalgic mode.

Of course there will be things that I will never part with. Letters for instance fall in this category. And this blog post is certainly not permission for my mother to throw away my old letters. Nor will I be able to part with some of my daughter’s baby stuff.

But I wonder if our inability to let go of nostalgia causes certain stagnation in our life. And objects that surround me cause nostalgia. And I want to keep moving…forward…