Have you ever set something aside for a long time, in a box or away somewhere, and then went back to it and the smell of it brought memories flooding back to you?
Today, I pulled an old stack of playing cards out of my closet and they had this familiar smell to me. They were cards that we ("MrApronStrings" and I) had brought back with us from his grandfather's house in Montana back in 1996. When I opened the acrylic case that they were in, I could smell his house on them. They had an old, musty smell to them.
Then I realized something important about myself. I spend entirely way too much time living in the past. I'm always thinking about "what-ifs" and old memories and how if I'd have just done one thing differently...all that stuff. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, but I spend so much time and thought there in yesterday that I forget to live in today too.
Continuing to look through my closet, I can also clearly see that there's no way that I can ever forget all of the memories I've collected...I have hard copies to go with them. I collect way too much memorabilia. I have old play programs, old cards from friends and family, old airplane ticket stubs...you name it. And again, that kind of stuff is okay to hold on to because some day my memories of the experience will start to get foggy and not as clear as they are now and I might need that stuff to fill in little blanks here and there. But, at the same time I need to put that stuff way in the back of my closet and my mind and not look back on them daily with so much doubt and regret about things that I could've/should've/would've done differently.
As I was talking to my aunt (the one in Baltimore) yesterday, she said to me You can plan things, but try not to plan too far ahead...plan for tomorrow. I told her that I dont want to plan for tomorrow, I can only live and plan for today...but yesterday still eats at me from time to time. And I need to let go of that baggage, carrying it around is only going to hurt me more.
Yesterday, "MsMoHoney" read me an email and the gist of it was a professor that took in a glass of water to his class and asked the students how much water was in the glass. After many replies, he answered telling them that it wasnt about weight in numbers at all. If he stood there holding the glass of water for five minutes, it wouldnt feel like anything...but the longer he held on to it, the heavier it would start to feel. And that's how I feel. Like I started with a one ounce cup that over time of carrying has started to feel like oceans. And its time for me to put the glass down.
Last night I went over to "MsMoHoney"'s house for a little while. She had baked a German chocolate cake for my birthday. She's incredibly sweet like that. Then it was even more hilarious later on when I received a call from "MrBigDaddy" to come pick him up from the grocery store. He had stopped there to pick up milk and eggs to bake me a cake.
You should've seen this cake. It was a white cake with white icing with chocolate chips in it. The funniest part was that we didnt have any birthday candles in the house so he used one of my big votive candles. He came walking out of the kitchen with this cake with a big old candle in the middle of it, singing Happy Birthday to me. I wanted to laugh and cry all the same breath.
Every now and then, I see the person that I want him to be...but that quick glimpse isnt enough for me anymore. I need more than that. And someday...I'll have more than that.