When boxes of greeting cards are overflowing and no longer fit their
designated home it's time to sort through them and lighten the number of cards saved.
However, I simply cannot toss those cards from my high school Home Economics teacher, someone who thought well enough of me to keep in touch long after I graduated from high school. Cards from her go back over sixty three years to 1940, when they began finding their way into my mailbox in 1944.
I cherish that first Christmas card featuring my teachers three small children cozily tucked into bed. A colorful CHOO CHOO train spanned the top of their blanket. Three small smiling young faces peered above that quilt.
It was the beginning of her annual Christmas cards that stretched through the marriages and the death of one of her children . It continues through the loss of her husband and as I write this, she is wheelchair bound and cared for by a daughter. I just cannot toss those cards.
Through the years I saved a clever card from my stock broker. It displayed Santa in his brilliant red suit against a white background covered with stock market symbols. Do I keep it? No! I envied the designer with his clever expertise in designing a card, however, I reluctantly tossed it into the "round file". The beginning of reaching the end of my goal. Fight clutter!
Toss that different card with it's Chinese symbols against a gleaming gold background, that Santa in a fireman's suit slithering down a firestation pole, the card picturing a doll house made by a casual friend's husband. A touching picture for her, but not for me, TOSS IT!
This should I, or should I not keep a mountain of cards and pictures from over sixty years went on until the clock slipped past midnight. There comes a time to shed the weight of all of those cards and lighten up my life with order and more needed space. I was adamant as I tossed and tossed cards in spite of that lingering feeling of guilt.
As I slipped into bed I felt freer, lighter, unleashed from the drag of unnecessary items.
Among those cards, and pictures were pictures of friends children, children we barely knew and wouldn't recognize if we saw them today!
While I felt a twinge of guilt at tossing their pictures, it felt good not to be in charge of them any longer. Ridding my life of needless items has been the equivalent of a pardon, a step toward freedom of space and thought.
I can smile as I take baby steps to rid my house and belongings of clutter and I can happily feel smug as I view the front covers of Women's Day and Family Circle magazines as they splash article after article on Defeating Clutter peering from every cover of EVERY issue!
With a sigh of relief at completeing that chore, and as I view a shelf neat and orderly, I can take a deep breath and tell myself, FREE AT LAST!
3 comments:
Thanks to Shirconn for sending me by email one of the old cards from her collection. It was a card made by our father in the early 1930's. He had no access to modern digital photography and computer photo programs. He did know how to do tricks in the darkroom and came up with a Christmas card with images of family members on a caricature house with a seasonal greeting.
Norman Lunde would have loved all of the computer technology that is available today. From chess to digital music, photography and database, he would have mastered them all. Imagine the glee he would have in summoning a Spike Jones recording at a touch of a mouse button.
Looks like Norman got folded in the scanner. Maybe you can tape him up and scan the card again.
Post a Comment