I never thought I would be able to do it. Never in a million years did I think I would be able to let go of something that to anyone else would seem silly or insignificant. To be honest, I thought I’d lost it years ago. It’s funny the things you hold onto. The things, that for whatever reason, mean something to you. It’s so hard to throw away something that you’ve held onto for years and years. A card from a friend, or maybe from a loved one who has since left this earth. Just the thought of throwing these things away sends a pain right to my heart.

I think the reason it’s so hard to let go of things is because we’ve attached memories to them and we feel like if we throw those things away, the memories get thrown away with them. Logically we know this isn’t true, but our hearts tell us to hold on while our minds tell us to let go. It’s a never ending battle and depending on which one is stronger will determine whether you keep the object or throw it away.

For me, I don’t think it’s too hard to guess which one is stronger. Clearly I have a hard time emotionally letting go of things. I’m afraid. Afraid to let go. But why? That time in my life is gone. There’s nothing left to hold onto. Throwing it away solidifies that, and that’s scary. If I’ve really let go, if I’ve really moved on, if I’m really truly happy with my life now, then throw it away. It holds no meaning anymore. It serves no purpose but to haunt me and take me back to a time in my life that didn’t work out.

Instead of throwing it away, I go fold laundry. I need to clear my mind, I need to think this through. I need to emotionally prepare myself to let go of this. I know it may seem silly to people who don’t place sentimental value on objects. For someone like me, this is going to take me a few to psych myself up and tell myself I’m ready to move forward in every way.

You see, I held onto a few things from that “relationship” I was in with that one guy. There wasn’t a lot to hold onto, but what little tangible objects I do have, I’ve held on tight to them. For years I swore I’d never let anything go. A picture, a note he wrote on an old wall calendar, an old printed out IM conversation etc. It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s stuff that a high school girl hangs onto, not a grown ass woman. I held onto them anyway.

I’ve been trying to clean this house all day to get ready for my son’s birthday party. I had a big box of stuff that I knew I needed to go through. I knew that 90% of it was just junk that needed to be tossed, but I had just been too lazy to dive into it. I started going through all of these papers and notebooks and drawings, wondering why in the hell I had kept all of this useless crap for all these years! Things that literally had no purpose, I chose to hang onto them. Not today. Not anymore. The trash pile grew bigger and bigger. Junk that I’d had since high school and college was making its way into the trash can. God this feels great! I’m really being productive today! It’s also very therapeutic!

And then I found a briefcase of sorts…a leather binder, if you will. I open it up and inside are tons of old papers. Papers that had served no purpose other than to collect dust and take up space. I cleaned the entire thing out! And then I saw it. Something I thought I had lost. It’s not anything that holds any value or worth of any kind to anyone else, but it did to me. I had found it. I just stared at it for awhile and then decided to open it.

It was a red folder. What was inside that red folder? A printed out IM conversation I’d had with him.

Now Sam….why on God’s green earth would you hold onto that? Why would you even print something like that? Honestly? I think at the time I probably had two reasons for printing that conversation. The first reason was because during that conversation he told me he loved me. He said quite a few intimate things in that conversation, actually. I wanted to hold onto those words. I wanted to be able to go back and read them anytime I wanted to.

What was the other reason? Proof. I wanted proof that he had been talking to me. Proof of one of the many conversations that had happened in the middle of the night. Proof that I wasn’t crazy. Proof that I wasn’t a liar. Did I ever use it against him? No. Why not? Because I could never bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to ruin his life. I’m not evil. Nothing good would come of me bringing that conversation to light. There was no point. So I held onto it. I tucked it away in a binder, in a box, and put it in the back of my mind.

So here I am, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at this red folder with this 4 to 5 page IM conversation in it. I read through it. I laughed, I smiled, and then I stopped and realized that I can’t hold onto this anymore. I’ve been set free, right? Yes. So why hold onto it any longer?

…I need to fold more laundry.

So time goes by today and I’ve folded nearly every basket of laundry we have. I finally come to terms with the fate of this stupid little red folder. It’s time to let go, Sam. It’s not doing you any good and it isn’t going to help you in any way. Walking back over to the kitchen table, I sit down, I open this red folder up, and I begin to read the entire conversation one last time. And then I tucked those memories away, stood over the trash can, and let it go.

Maybe you’re all like omg seriously Sam?

Yes. Seriously. Maybe it’s dumb, maybe holding onto something like that is silly. But I did. And now, it’s gone. That conversation will always be in my mind. That’s where it will always stay.