My Mom Threw out my Personal Belongings

One of My Art Pieces that was tossed - "Reflections"

Another One of my Art Pieces - "Happy things"

I booked my tickets excited to go ‘home’. I booked my tickets excited to see and spend time with my family. I booked my tickets to be surrounded by warmth and love. I booked my tickets to go HOME.

 I was told to bring a bag to start bringing my stuff back to California. “You have a house now, take your stuff with you.” It’s not that I didn’t want my stuff with me, it’s that a big part of me feels like it belongs in that house. In that closet, in my sanctuary. How many times when life got hard did I retreat into my walk in closet to find comfort. I had even sometime taken a pillow and blanket and climbed of my shelving and lay there to find my ‘safe place’. That closet has always been by childhood retreat.

 So then I left for college, many miles away. But when I’d come home, I’d come home. I could engross myself in all of the wondrous memories that my closet was home for and transport myself back to those days. Those days playing video games in the closet, those days learning how to handwrite and spell. Those days writing a journal. There was something that has always rung true to me and it was be right to be me. Stories are important to me, experience are important to me, memories are important to me. Without this life is just an empty shell. Those things I had spent time on, each brush stroke, every pencil mark, every push of the clay, having those objects, those notebooks, those art pieces brings be completely back to that point in time. it centers me. It makes me feel like me. It tells my story. It reminds me of my past, it grounds me to my present, it highlighted my future. I’ve always been surrounded by kids, and I had a very vivid

Mixed Media, Acrylic paint brush and air brush

"Flowers"  One of my first pieces of fine art, made in Kindergarten

childhood. Often I feel my childhood is more vivid than my present. There is consistency in childhood, there are major changes and checkpoints in childhood. Adulthood has this way of just running one day into the next, less predictability, less stability, more being alone.

 Those things told a story. They told a story of the people who have helped me grow in my life. Who have taught me things, who have made me laugh. Those things were not just things. They were objects that when touched, smelled, seen would transport me back and let me realize that I have a history, that I have a presence, that I have a future.  It was my meditation, my ritual. A reminder of who I am.

 Someone else does NOT get to choose what someone else should find important or not. Personal belongings

"Target" - Airbrushed, won the state gold key

are called personal belongings because that what they are… PERSONAL. And if you want to strip them down to call them ‘things’ and that they are not ‘important’, then you can do that with practically everything. One does not have the right to decide what is important to another person.

 I kept those personal affects, my journals, my creative work, my art because it meant the world to me. Now I’m without. I’m just without. It hurts so badly. I’ve wanted to share that with my kids one day. To tell them, hey, I was a kid. I’m not just some silly adult that doesn’t understand you. I’ve lived through what you will live through and I’m there for you, because hey, life is hard, but it’s ok, because you are loved and we’ve got each other.

 Now I’ll just be some stupid adult. Some stupid adult that has always been a stupid adult who doesn’t remember what it’s like to be a kid. Who doesn’t understand what they are thinking when they are that age, because I won’t be able to read my history and remember what I was doing, thinking, feeling and experiencing when I was their age. Now I’ll have to look at them like they are young and dumb instead of being right there with them and understanding them fully and completely.

My mom never full understood me. So, I wrote things down and promised myself that when I would have a kid I’d make sure to understand them. And I would do that by writing things down. I would make sure I’d leave a record behind. So that others wouldn’t have it so rough. And even when things get bad, they wouldn’t feel alone. Alone is a scary place to be, and no one should feel that way. But at some point, I’m sure it rings true that everybody does.

 So this is a note to the future me, and to anyone else that can relate that says… it’s OK. It’s ok to feel, its ok to feel sad. It’s ok to feel overwhelmed. It may not always be socially acceptable to admit this, to be a burden upon others, to feel like you are just causing drama. People can always pull things, skew things, warp things and turn situations into what they aren’t. Just remember your truth. Write down your truth. Be true to yourself, you don’t need everyone else’s validation to feel they way you do. You can feel.