Memory Challenge Day 25

Letting go of perfection allows you to create.
Letting go of caring what others think is freeing (but it's not an excuse for being rude).
There's a lightness that comes when you let go of FOMO.
There's a lightness that comes when you decide you don't need to adapt to everything new. Especially tech stuff.
Letting go of preconceived notions and expectations brings new possibilities.

We were taught that margarine is healthier than butter. I let go of avoiding butter gradually: I started baking Christmas cookies with real butter years ago. But I do have a specific Challenge Memory about letting go of Fear of Butter.

One sunny day in Boise, Patsy served a delicious meal that was elevated by a lovely table setting. While we indulged ourselves, Patsy talked about the desirability of natural foods. She made sense.

I still sin with many dietary choices, but now I relax as I sauté some vegetables and eggs in butter... or spread butter on toast... or add butter to a sandwich like my mother used to do.

In this, my 75th year, letting go is more important than it's ever been.

envelopes in a boxContent of letter from box

Letting go of sadness

By far the hardest thing about getting old is losing so many people; being robbed of others who share your early memories, especially those of the family and friends that you both loved. It can be difficult to find peace with this.
But as long as we remember loved ones they are not really gone.

One day during the pandemic I found a treasure: I unearthed a box of old letters, mostly letters my parents wrote to their families during WWII. It was so exciting! (I keep thinking I should make an advent calendar out of them...)

Take a peek at a few of the letters.

art supplies

I remember another day when I looked around my place and realized how much stuff I have, like art supplies, that I will probably never use again. I've accumulated all manner of things; dishes and art and books... These possessions started to feel oppressive to me.

But then I let go and thought of those same things as possibilities and happy memories.

Possibilities and good memories: fine things to surround yourself with.

Woman and teenage girl on the street in the 1940s. Corrine Luman was a friend to our family. She was especially important to my mother and aunt when my grandmother died at an early age.

Corrine had no children of her own. As far as I know, Susan and I are the only people who remember her now. I ended up with her beautiful crystal glassware. It connects me to her.

Thinking about good people who are not remembered can be disheartening, but in the end it's all the same. After 100 years or so, only the most important people are truly remembered, and only for a little while longer. It's now that matters.

Letting go of trying to recall everything

"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

(I cannot remember all of my happy Christmases; even so, they have made me.)

A quick peek at how I keep Christmas these days.

So it's OK if you didn't completely conquer the Happy Memory Challenge. As Toni Morrison wrote:

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.

You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.

It is enough.

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