I M Perfect lady

As I think of the de-cluttering I have to do in my basement, there are a few items that I struggle with. 

Art.

That was given to me.

By my estranged family.

 

I don't believe there is a way to separate the art from the artist.

It doesn't stand alone.

The art includes the artist.

 

And, can you separate the toxic from the person in art?

 

I am inclined to burn.

The art.

 

And let it go.

 

I also have albums and albums of pictures.

Siblings I haven't seen in so many years.

Memories now tainted.

Can you distill the good from the dysfunction.

The 'normal' from the abuse?

 

I shoved lots of things to the deep recesses of our storage area – not wanting to toss 

and not wanting to see them.  

 

These mementos are not like when you lose someone.

Where you hold on to things – to save the memories.

It is the opposite, or so it seems.

The things now hold the person.

The person you no longer want to be with;

to remember – to know.

 

I feel like a traitor thinking of burning old pictures and art.

An act of savagery against family.

Ripping and tearing it to shreds

And, yet abuse did that.

Not I

 

Abuse destroyed – what I now have left to destroy.

 

Perhaps it is the last vestiges of hope that there was a family there – and a good one.

The last hold out – will be gone.

 

It is not like getting rid of old junk, or things you won't use, or haven't used.

These items are different.

 

The good energy – it seems from them. The good from the bad.

Yet too many bad memories in the items, for me to hold on to them.

 

In the early days of my discovering my sexual abuse.

I often said, "for now".

Not saying forever.

 

I couldn't think of the long empty road of loss being endless.

It has been 16 years now.

 

It is time to let it all go.

 

Reality has changed the value of these treasures.

Just as abuse changed the integrity of our family.

The meaningful turned meaningless.

 

There is sadness in my heart, to know there is nothing there worth holding on to.

Nothing.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Janis Joplin

Cleaning out the past!