By nature, I am a collector. I love things, and I love to have beautiful things around me. I especially love dishes, tea pots, the beautiful hand-painted serving pieces that were my grandmothers'. Each season, I pull out different pieces, putting them where I see them daily, and loving each one so deeply. They still serve me. They bring beauty to my environment, and when I see them I feel the connection to my grandmother, whom I still love so deeply.
I used to collect people as well. I love being part of a group, so I created groups, and filled them with people of like-interests. Each time, though, eventually either the group broke up, or I moved on to something else. None of them lasted very long with me. There were several book groups, where my love of reading was satiated along with my need for company. There were several writing groups, but I soon learned in each of them that the others in the group were writing for their own enjoyment, whereas I wanted so badly to become a Writer, write a book, get published. I moved on. But each time I left a group, I felt abandoned, alone, lost. Why didn't these people want to help me? And so I began looking for the next group to create or join. But I would try to hold onto the members of each group, and felt rejected when they would move on without me.
It took me until well into my 50's to begin to understand that I was not being abandoned. I no longer served a purpose in their life; the thing that had brought us together was no longer being shared, and they were seeking their own path. That awareness allowed me to begin to understand that collecting people just to say I have friends is no different than collecting silverware, just to be able to say I have five sets of it. I began to understand that people come into our lives, and most of them only stay for a short while, and then we no longer need each other. Do I need five sets of silver? No! Do I use them all? Yes, for different events. So perhaps its not yet time to let them go....
When I shifted my perspective, when I began to see myself as Enough, I also began to realize just how precious my long-term friends are, and how essential the short-term friends are to my spiritual growth and theirs. My awareness of myself as Divine allowed me to recognize that even though I let go of things, or people, a part of them always stays with me. I choose which part -- if they are people who upset me, then the lessons I learned from them becomes their legacy to me, and I can let them go in peace. It's in choosing what to keep in my life that I create myself anew each day.
The day will come when I'll pass the beautiful dishes to my daughter, gifting her with my energetic connection to my beloved ancestors who are hers as well. She will look at them, and feel my presence, just I have felt my grandmothers'. But if they don't delight her, if they become a burden to store or to care for, I'm okay if she passes them on to someone who will enjoy them. Because I want her to be able to let go of things that no longer serve her, just as I have learned to do.
What do you collect? Do they serve a purpose in your life? Is that purpose meaningful, or is it a "security blanket" of some kind that you really don't need? I'd love to hear from you!
