A cabinet

We all have our cupboards and bookshelves, and even our (kitchen)cabinets filled with the things we either use on a day by day basis, or with things we value to the point we don’t want to throw them out. Yet.

As far as the things we need and use regularly go there is no question of whether to keep them or not. But for those things we haven’t used in a couple of years, or our treasures of the past, it is not as easy to determine whether we should hang on to them or not. It becomes an intensely personal decision; a decision that can be very easy for some, while it turns out to be very hard for others.

The key ~ as always ~ is found in the balance. In this case the balance of what to keep, and what can go. And forcing a ‘pack-rat’ to get rid of their stuff, often is as unproductive as trying to convince a ‘minimalist’ to hang on to something for future use.

It seems like some people enjoy having physical representations of past events around. The pictures and souvenirs help them to recapture the energy of those (joyful) events. Other people have no problem bringing the energy of joyful memories back into their minds by just thinking about them. To them, the physical representations are just baggage of which their is no need to keep carrying it around any longer.

That being said, when there is an opportunity to take a peek into someone else’s cabinet of memories, it often turns out to be an fascinating adventure!
At first glance, whatever the physical memories are gives an interesting perspective on the person who has collected them. Whether it is art, correspondence, pictures, or a kaleidoscope of things a person has done and/or created in ~ sometimes long-ago ~ times past…

Sometimes a cabinet is just a cabinet, while other times a cabinet is a portal into times long gone; this through the physical representations of the memories of any one person.
Sometimes our best option is to not enter that portal, while other times we can learn a lot from wandering the winding roads of day gone by, observing, reading, and looking at the objects in that cabinet. Listening to the stories each object has to tell us. Enjoying the fact that they have given so much pleasure to the person who has hung on to them for so long…

It is not a matter of living in the past, but moreover an enrichment of our lives as we walk along the joyful parts of the path of our ancestors.
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