A New Way of Holding Things Close

The aim of this ExploringWithBruce.com blog and its supporting social media spaces is to be a forward-looking and experience-sharing space.  But over the last few weeks during my efforts to downsize and prepare to live a more minimalist lifestyle, I decided to scan thousands of old photographs.  I admit, holding a hard physical copy of one of these pictures in my hand did bring up of deep sentimental feeling.  But after years of moving covered crates and tubs full of photo albums and many hundreds of loose pictures around, some of which were duplicates and triplicates, it occurred to me that although I wanted to hold on to a memory, my desire to hold on to them in this physical medium meant that I actually was accessing and viewing them less, and the medium was preventing me from enjoying the memory.

As I was going through each photo one by one during my preparation process for moving out, I had one of those “what was I thinking” moments.  Here I was, going through these pictures that supposedly were precious to me and I couldn’t even remember the last time I had seen some of these photos.  That was when the new simpler lifestyle really began to make sense to me.

So why create this post and comment on a picture from my past?  It’s simple, I am celebrating a new life and new choices.  And this photo in the post?  This is the exact picture I was holding in my hand when I started feeling peace and gratitude that I could save these memories in a new medium.  One that was less burdensome and yet infinitely more accessible to me, and one that could make the memories infinitely more accessible too.

Had I done this some time ago, perhaps I would have felt the desire and calling to reconnect with my spirit of adventure and the sense of wonder sooner.  I don’t know whether or not that is true, but I do know that back in 1987 when I picked up an old beat up car from a questionable rental outfit in Cancun and decided to drive it across the then underdeveloped jungle area of Quintana Roo towards Chichen Itza, Mexico, I remember that was a bit crazy.  But hours later finding myself standing atop the steps in front of El Caracol, the amazing and unique pre-Columbian Maya Observatory site, and now in the present looking at a picture of that moment, ……. that is a memory that I’d like to hold close to my heart.

I understand the professional organizing expert Marie Kondo once said that she was so focused on what to discard, she had forgotten to cherish the things that she loved, the things she wanted to keep.  I agree with her, and I want to discard the things that are barriers and keep the beautiful memories.