Finding Freedom From Fixtures

After recently taking a workshop with Marylee Fairbanks (http://maryleefairbanks.com/) I have decided to begin my own "24 Things" challenge (http://maryleefairbanks.com/24-things/). The rules are simple: each day for 24 days you let go of something that has been cluttering up your house, something that no longer serves you, objects that will be better suited at a yard sale, donation box, or in a trash barrel. During the 24 day release, one should only purchase necessities-- food, medical care, etc. All other material desires should be added to an ongoing list. If you are able to remember the items on your list at the end of the 24 days, then you are free to purchase them, otherwise they are likely to have been unimportant. According to Marylee, "The clutter in our house reflects the clutter in our hearts." Are we clinging to mementos of past relationships? Unwanted gifts that we were too polite to turn away? Clothes that haven't fit for years? Objects that no longer reflect who we are currently in this ever-changing body and mind of ours? Are the things we surround ourselves with keeping us rooted in the past, preventing us from blossoming into the future? In order to invite abundance into our lives, we must eliminate the unnecessary clutter that surrounds us.

Although Marylee recommends four cycles, corresponding to the four seasons, of 24 Things each year, the timing of her most recent workshop and the significance of this period in my own life could not have been better. I will be beginning my solitary 24 Things today, April 29th exactly one year after my (ex) husband told me he was moving out. In exactly 24 days I will turn 28 years old. I cannot think of a better way to mark the end of a year of transformation and to usher in another year of abundance, love, and gratitude for this life that constantly challenges and inspires me.

"One good thing to remember when clearing out is this: If you have an object that makes the past feel more important than the future then you should let it go. The past is gone. Your present is all that need be nourished." ~Marylee Fairbanks

Friday, August 23, 2013

67: Address Labels

Being married to the military, I moved around a lot in a short amount of time. I found that after donating to one organization, I started receiving address labels from about five different places. In college a social psychology teacher of mine told us that it's a proven fact that people are more likely to donate when they are given address labels. As the rectangular stickers started pouring in from companies I'd never heard of and couldn't justify supporting, I guiltily pulled out the address labels and discarded the payment form. I would always use the address labels sent by the organization I had donated to first. I had hundreds of them and was never able to use them all before moving to a new address.

Less than a year after getting married, I realized that my English degree wasn't going to be the key to a career or, as I'd hoped, publishing a best-selling novel and never having to work a regular job again. When I was working in Barnes and Noble to pay for college, a customer asked me what I was majoring in. When I told him English he said, "Well, that's a road to no where." After that I vowed to myself that I wouldn't work in retail after graduation. I kept my promise to myself in part because I couldn't find a job and in part because I refused to go back to working at Barnes and Noble. I didn't want to admit that a stranger's rude comment had been accurate. Five months after moving to Georgia and being unemployed for the first time in six years, I was feeling particularly desperate and sitting at the kitchen table. I looked through the window and saw a school bus dropping off children and decided I would go back to school to become a teacher even though I'd been telling people for four years that I would never teach.

Half the teachers I met when I was completing my practicums and student teaching remarked that I looked like a student myself. It's true that I do look much younger than my age, but I like to think I carry myself with more confidence and assurance than a teenager. At least I'm a lot better off than I was when I was fifteen years ago. In an effort to seem older, I insisted on being called Mrs.. After college, I spent my first year in a long-term sub position with seniors, and the year after I was hired full-time to teach twelfth grade in another district. Some of the students who had stayed back several times weren't much younger than me and might have run into me in a bar after work if I ever went out drinking. I was very clear that they should refer to me as Mrs.. Now, a year and a half after my marriage ended, many of the teachers in the school and most of my former students still call me Mrs. and each time it's like a punch to the chest.

All of the address labels came addressed to Mrs. as well. When my husband first left me, I started using a permanent marker to black out the three letters before sending them in the mail. I completed the change of name form immediately, but it took months before I started receiving new sets with the "r" taken away.

The day my husband walked out, just before he left I said I'd check the mail to see if there was anything there for him. I came back with a thick envelope from the US Marine Corps addressed to me. He was still lingering in the kitchen even though his things were all packed in the back seat of his car, so I opened the envelope to avoid meeting his gaze, to take my mind off the tears that were fighting to spill over any second. Inside was a fresh set of Mrs. address labels as well as a Semper Fi bumper sticker. I separated out the bumper sticker, held it toward my husband and said, "Here, why don't you take this? You're always faithful." As soon as I'd said it I realized what an insult it was. Here he was, about to walk out on me after he'd been having an affair for at least several months and probably longer and I was offering him a sticker for a branch of the military he hadn't served in, with a logo that couldn't be further from describing him in terms of our marriage. "I don't need that," he said and turned to leave.

I still had the address labels the Marine Corps sent to me along with dozens of other labels from various charities, many of them for addresses I no longer lived at. After getting rid of all the Mrs. labels from where I live now, I still had three books of Ms. labels and I'm sure more will be in the mail soon.
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