Reflection

It's comical to me -- to think that my moments of silence and solitude are the very same moments when my mind is racing at it's peak. I sit here during my children's nap time, thinking of the million little things I should be or could be doing at the moment and all I can do is think about my past, my future, and what God has in store for my family and those around me. I used to be much worse, with dwelling on the past. Until I heard a quote about the importance of not letting your life waste away thinking about yesterday. It was powerful, meaningful and gave me a reason to stop thinking so much about my past. BUT today, my past was colorful.

I cleaned out an old piece of furniture I have in my daughters room. This is a lingerie chest and it's the only place in the house where I consider a safe place to put *my* things. It has random notes, letters and cards I've received throughout my life, some arts and crafts supplies, letter-writing materials, and what's left of my pictures that are printed. I cleaned it out today and organized it. Although it is 6 drawers tall, organizing was not the difficult part of my job today. Today was difficult because I went through pictures.

Am I the only one who does this from time to time? It either does one of two things for me. It either makes me incredibly happy and comforted by all of the special people in my life, OR it totally bums me out that there are memories I have to block out because that person has become someone different (for the worse). I've held on to them for this long, and some of them are close to 17 years old but for some reason, today....I felt the latter of those two possible outcomes. I trashed half of my photo collection.

I know what you're thinking... "This broad is CRAZY!!" but know that I did save every photo that gave me that *happy memory* feeling you get when you see a photo of something you did with friends and it made you happy, still makes you happy......yes, I kept those. However, several pictures I threw out because some of the people in the photos have given themselves horrible reputations in my life. One photo is of two childhood friends and I. Today, one completely despises me and the other just refuses to recognize I'm still alive. Keep the photo? In the past, I was clinging on to the chance that we would be friends again..... but I'm not seeing it happen. I didn't get rid of all of the pictures with their smiling faces, but ones that were just me and them, I did.

Picture of me and my high school boyfriend in a romantic pose--- necessary to keep? Probably not. Although, know that if I were to get rid of all of the pictures with him in them, I wouldn't have any pictures from high school. Keeping the group pictures was a little bit easier, as they meant something different.

I used to not get rid of ANY pictures. They, in their unimportance, can still bring back some of the coolest memories. But for the sake of my future and my thoughts...

I had to get rid of some pictures.