Letting Go

Some would think this would be about letting go of my husband, when you become marked as I have, there is no letting go. None either if there is great love involved. No there are other things need letting go, we keep them around for many reasons.
Having listened to my grandmother for many years, and my mother as well, depression era survivors, you don't throw things away, you hold on save it don't use it and store it for that special occasion or the rainy day. Those things never come though but the recording goes on and on. Now some of us like this are responsible for the antiques on the market today. Still between plastic bags and plastic containers, you could drown in them.
But I was forced into a delema that had several consequences. I have my grandmother 's antique lamps,, a few years ago I replaced the shades. My husband said I should leave the plastic on. Well I had to move the one lamp, and in a fit of defiance took the plastic off, it was stupid to keep it on, right? Well comes the summer and the air conditioner is running, and I never had this experiance before, but the AC peed on the lamp for all intent and purposes. Destroyed the shade with this brown gunk!!! And I didn't find it for a while. It turned my stomach, well the brown splotch on the white shade and the cost of that shade, because lamp shades are not cheep.
Well just afew short weeks ago I spied some pretty shades in the store(a subsideiary of Marshalls and TJ Maxx- Home Goods) they were to my surprize only $20 cheep enough but avery good quality. So went home looked at the lamp again and decided which one to get.
The shock of all shocks was the sight of this shade on this lamp, over 50 years apart and they were made for each other. The lamp itself is a porciline white background washed in a pale pink, gold touching rims and roses painted on it. The lamp shade is a pale green back ground also with roses. My daughter thought I got a new lamp that is how different it looks. Every time I look at the lamp I am confounded by the 50 year wait for the right one, which lends itself to a whole other tale. And one I will talk about soon.
Well the white shade also an elegant beauty marked by that stain, sat there. In my mind I debated with throwing it out or trying to get rid of the stain. That whole issue is just well sickening. So I have struggled with a sink issue, namely clogging, but decided to try the oxyclean on the stain. It did fade it, but then smell was awful. It was then in a flash I said out......... that's it it has to go. I could hear both my mother and grand mother turning in their graves at this. Yes I am genitically a pack rat, but this here is the issue of letting go. Very hard to break training. But necessary, and so I have been letting go of many things of late.
With each thing I send on this journey, I am reminded that we can let go of things, but never let go of people, the are part of who we are and the person we have become. They are always with us for with them there is no letting go. Doing that unravels the tapestry of our life, the measure of this journey that continues to the next part.