Seasons

Oh wow! It’s been a while since I sat down to write here! All my creative juices have been pouring into some other places, and I can’t wait to share! 

But for now, this is where I am.

I decided to take on the task of organizing all of our family’s photos and memorabilia. I have been watching my life’s series for the last few months. 

 It all started with the basement. My husband and I… ok my husband moved every single bin, box, and knickknack we have been collecting together for 25 years of our lives together, upstairs. As we started unboxing it all, I found myself drowning in a nostalgic sea. My husband felt so bad that he let me sit there with a box while he did all the moving. Hundreds of memories started unfolding in front of my eyes, my eyes getting cloudier by the minute. I had to take deep breaths to keep going. What had just happened? But this happened yesterday? I kept saying to myself. It was just yesterday. My house, empty of the noise I loved, had become a cruel playground of memories hopping around me. I thought to myself, wait a minute, I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t want to feel the pain, like a slap in the face of the reality of my emptiness. So I pushed through it, hoping that if I opened another box it would get easier, that I would at some point feel numb. But it didn’t happen. What I had to realize is that the time had come. To really face my reality. To look at it with my eyes, cry it out, and mourn it. I let myself feel it all. And I sighed like I haven’t before. I took many deep breaths that day. I kept feeling it all. Then I decided to contain all of those beautiful emotional feelings in a little more organized and bearable manner. So I started to do what I do best. Organize. I started a meticulous compartmentalization of my family’s stages. All the seasons we have weathered together. I channeled that energy into action. The type of energy I create when I feel overwhelmed. The kind of energy that I use to process my feelings. I gather each and every piece of history and carefully place it all in my studio. It’s all safe, in one place. It’s not organized. That is going to take time and meticulous sorting.

But time is what I have.

I want to give this project the life and attention it deserves. I am not gonna rush it. It took us 26 years to get here. So it can take a few months for it to be processed and organized.  

I assume you know where I am going with this. We tend to rush into processing things. We want to end the pain, the discomfort as fast as we can. Perhaps sitting with our emotions rather than rushing to silence them is one way of reminding oursleves that we're safe, that we are going to be okay, that some things take time.

I am grateful I have lived all these memories, those in the past that brought me so much joy, and pride, and peace. Also, I have to honor the ones that brought me tears, anguish, and sadness. I'm now organizing all those memories, not perfectly, but lovingly, in boxes. I managed to pick some beautiful linen ones!!! Because I want them all lovingly put away somewhere pretty. That’s the love I want to wrap around them. And when my family opens that huge antique chest I commissioned to hold it all, they will find all the love I gave. I am sure they will want to sit down in front of it and watch all the seasons we had together. 

My advice for you today? Let it be. Let yourself feel it all. And go buy yourself some pretty boxes! To lovingly store all your seasons.

With Love,

Gabriela