GIVING THANKS: Looking Back

It was just a year ago that I was packing up my life of 21 years, from an apartment I had loved (and still sometimes miss). Some of that life survived, some of it was sold, and some of it was given away - LOTS was given away.

I am still going through things, by the grace of friends, and evaluating what I really need to keep and what is precious.  As my friend Christina, who has been so great in helping me work through this asks me regularly when we are sorting, "Do you Love this?"

It was, and continues to be, an amazing process.  One in which, now that I am no longer surrounded by the bulk of my own possessions, really allows me to focus on what is important to me.  It is not as much as I thought!

What I always will remember about that emotional, gut-wrenching, physically painful move was the amazing possession of wonderful friends.  Some of whom went incredibly out of their way to help me.  That's something you can't pack in a box and categorize with a Sharpie label.

In memory of that moment of grace-filled friendship, I share this poem written a month or so after the move was complete.

Truly Humbled

By Judith Cullen  

(c) 2014

Everyone should experience,

Being truly humbled.

Stripping away the layers:

Stuff, status, trappings

Which surround and contain

All that is within.

An onion is easier to peel away

Tears flow just as genuine,

Doubts arise just as often

“Am I losing too much?

What happens to ‘me’

When all this is gone?”

The process is painful, shedding

As layer after layer disappears

By chance, by necessity

“I can’t lose much more”

Gasping to realize suddenly

you actually can.

When finally no more of your life

Truly can be repelled.

When you feel barren

Diminished, despairing.

What is left to decide?

What is left dispense?

In this key moment of clarity

Choose your course carefully.

You cannot masquerade

Behind what you have

Who you know

False perceptions of status.

Only the essential you remains.

What will you make of it?

This cordial collection

of galactic star stuff

Hanging together by

Familiarity or convenience.

 

Sense yourself as found, not lost

Embrace the simplicity

Of just being you

Without things to burden you

Status to mask you

Baggage in your way

Recognize that which was hiding,

That in losing almost all

You have discovered

There is so much more

Than what you have

Or who you seem.

Everyone should have the experience,

Of being truly humbled.

The liberation of soaring

Free of weight and bulk

Ego and possessions shed

The free flight of you.

Note:  Truly Humbled will be published in my upcoming collection of Essays and Poems - Coffee Shop Talk.  Look for it on Amazon for Kindle and in Paperback.