Letting Go, Remembering Well

Downsizing Gracefully: Letting Go, Remembering Well

I stood in the doorway of our Get Away Place—the near-sacred space that held hopes for quiet retreats and bursts of activity—and felt the weight of a thousand memories settle like dust on the boxes and bins stacked around me. The realtor's sign was in the front yard. It was time to downsize. Not out of necessity, but invitation. The kind that whispers, “It’s time." 

As we sifted through things—trinkets from a forgotten celebration, handwritten cards whose events we could no longer recall—I noticed a curious grief. I couldn’t remember the celebrations or the moments these objects claimed to represent. But I remembered the people. Their laughter. Their presence. 

One worn token in particular—a brass tiger—stopped me. I’d saved it from my first classroom desk, and perhaps, only I saw its significance. Maybe no one else even noticed it on the table. But I had held onto it for decades, believing it carried meaning. Now, in this moment of transition, I wondered: was the memory in the object, or had it always been in me?

And that’s the strange miracle of clutter—we gather pieces to preserve what we can’t bear to lose. Yet time has a way of revealing that stories live better in our hearts than in storage bins.

Downsizing isn’t just about space. It’s about releasing ourselves from the need to prove our memories through possessions. The Get Away Place gave me rest. It gave me art. It stored our stuff. And now, letting go of its artifacts feels less like forgetting and more like trusting that nothing sacred is ever truly lost.

So we're choosing to keep the stories. The ones written not in ink or preserved in keepsakes, but carried in the voices and touch of those who shared them. Things can go. The presence remains.  

Be blessed!  wcd