Happy New Year! Ring It In By Letting Yourself Go

Last week my younger son was going through a bin of old photos. You probably have a similar box or bin, it's the one filled with the pictures you swear you will some day label and organize.  Every time I see the bin I feel like crap. I've even gone so far as to hide the bin way in the back of a closet so I can purposefully keep it out of sight and out of mind.  I hated being reminded of what I considered a failed New Years resolution..


Not only had I spent years resolving to organize the photos, I'd spent years not organizing the photos and feeling immense guilt.  The guilt was so terrible I would stick my fingers in my ears and do the 'lalalalalalala I can't hear you!" if anyone mentioned the "S Word" i.e. scrapbooking. And forget about going to one of those Creative Memory parties. My anxiety was so bad that when I heard the words "Acid Free" I silently contemplated if an "Acid Trip" might not somehow work out better for me. And I've never dropped acid. Ever.


As they used to say in the 70's, "Man, this wasn't a good scene." So you can imagine how lousy I felt when my son dragged out the bin. I felt the guilt bubble up as I looked down at the piles of pictures.  But then something happened and everything changed. My son began taking out the pictures and asking me about who was in them, when the photo was shot, which camera had been used, and who had taken the picture. As I started to tell him about family members and our friends, sharing with him the life happening through the lense so to speak, I realized I no longer had to feel guilty about not organizing the pictures. It was okay.  In fact it was even better than okay.


I concluded it was a good thing I had repeatedly blown my New Years resolution.  As a direct result of my actions (or really my lack of them) my son and I spent a couple of hours looking through the bin and talking together. No way in hell would that have happened the same way had all the pictures been perfectly organized and catalogued.


Do you have a guilt you've been carrying over with you from year to year? This is the year to just let it go.