"Throw it all in the trash"...said my mum as I stood in the midst of our living room holding a carton full of stuff I had taken out of our storecases of books, stationary and gifts received over the time.
This happens almost every 6 months when I deep cleanse the home and try to declutter. Whenever the new stuff out-spaces the old, I collect it and put it in a carton and then no one sees it ever again except me. I did that again this time, and when my mum asked me to throw it, I....simply couldn't. Like always. I kept it aside for a while and then sneakily took it to my closet, and secured it there.
This is me. I've always found it impossible to let go of stuff that has memories attached to it. Like a post card my middle school best friend made for my birthday with our pictures on it, like the funny song lyrics we used to write on chits during classes and laugh our hearts out on the last bench in highschool. Like the poems and sweet comments my classmates have written for me in my diary and slambooks.. like the first ring I bought for myself, Like the tulip sketches my nephews have made for me, like the first "painting" my niece made when she was just 15 months old (which is just a brush ran across a page in haphazard manner 🤭)
I keep it so close to me that whenever I get to open my closet, I know I have treasure hidden in it, that can take me back to the time whenever I had felt over the world. When I know, everything was perfect. Even for a day or an brief hour. But harm is when I do it with words spoken to me. Smiles given to me. I cannot throw them away from my mind either no matter how much my mind is occupied with other things. Like when one of my colleagues had literally lifted me up and didn't separate me from her embrace for a long time because she missed me during a week's leave. How my students and I would go around the campus for no apparent reason but just so we could goof around the places in the name of work. Like, when an elderly woman had smiled at me n kept her hand on my head because I helped her with something as simple as lifting her bag while we were coming down from a bus. Like, when someone had said "come back?" After I was absent for so many weeks...
Like when someone said "Forever, In Sha Allah" when I asked them if they can tolerate me.
Even if I know those words mean nothing now, but in that moment, they meant the world. And it pains me that I cannot go back in that moment and things stay as it is. I choose to live a lifetime in that one moment. Because I know, one day, everything has to be dumped into a carton and everyone will call it trash. But for me, it'll always matter. Because I suck at letting go. So, I have made a room inside the deepest chamber of my heart, just like my closet. Where all the words spoken to me, that I hold dear sparkle like glittering butterflies. But in a dungeon. Soon they'll die. And I have no choice except to make a grave out of it...that I'll avoid visiting often. But, whenever I'll need an escape...I know I'll find myself sitting near that grave, touching it ever so tenderly...because...I suck at letting go.
25th June 2023
