Letting go

My current biggest project is not knitting. It is the de-cluttering, rearranging, reorganizing the flat.

The big part of this is letting stuff go. But not only "stuff". But also memories, hopes, feelings, plans.
You already know how we packed up a carload of stuff and took them to P.

Yesterday I...hmmm (Christopher and I) WE gave away the bed he used as a baby, and well into his childhood. My mom got it through some of her charity friends. When my boy finally got his grown up bed I wanted to give it away, but P. wouldn't let me. He wanted to put it on the net and sell it. For me that just didn't feel right. What could we get for it? A couple of thousands of Forints? (Ten, twenty dollars?) Does that worth the fuss? The time spend on taking pictures upload tehm, set up on some e-bay like page? Besides we got it as a present it just felt wrong to me to ask money for it.
At the end P. never got around to put it on the net and/or sell it, even though he had MONTHS to do it.
Thinking it through I called the charity called LEA. They help unwed mothers and they have a home for them. Through them I found a woman who didn't had to go into the home because she has a place to live, but she when she had a two year old boy and was seven months pregnant the father left them. So aside from a place to live she needs almost everything. She was so glad to have the bed.
Christopher first cried, because it was difficult to say goodbye to the bed he used for so many years, but we talked about how we don't have the space to store it, how this lady and her baby needs it, and most of all how he has to learn let things go. We took pictures of the stickers he put on through the years, and said goodbye, literally. When the woman came and Christopher assured himself that she is indeed very nice he was happily helping to take the pieces down. It was interesting and lovely to see the change in my boy. God, he is growing up. For me it was difficult because I thought what I did when I gave away most of the baby clothes . I will only go for an other child if I live in circumstances that will allow me to afford new stuff. But I am running out of time, and I will just have to accept the fact that Christopher will be my only child.
Then today I started to work more on the "small room", and that was when I had to face letting go. Through some insignificant stuff as throwing out ten year old canned stuff I was remembering the time in Miami, when I first started get interested in canning and gardening. The Ft. Lauderdale flea market and the Hard Value store in the beach where I got the boxes of Ball jars. Of course I kind of know that if I didn't used a jar of pickles until now it wouldn't be very likely I will. Most of the bottles I can't even open, the tops are rusted. Throwing them out, meant letting go of my memories of Miami, the house in the country. My plans for the L shaped hacienda type house with a veranda, I always dreamed having there. The plans to have lots of guests (who would eat all those goods). The love for P. With each item I took into my hand, like the small packages of meatball-seasonings I had to go through that feelings. I know they are years and years old, even if I opened they wouldn't be much good.
And there were the questions in my head. Will I ever see Miami again? Will I ever have a house again? Will I have a garden again? Will I have love again?

But then I thought I just have to let it go. If I will live in a way that needs canning stuff again, I will find the source. I kept a few jars I could open and trow what was in it out, and wash them up, the rest just got thrown out with bottles and all.
What is so terribly broken between me and P will never be whole again. To quote a famous Hungarian humorist this rotten banana will not yellow back.
If there is an other trip to the US for me in the future it will find me. If there is a new love for me it will find me. If I really want to garden, my father's summerhouse is waiting for me.

I just have to learn to let things go.