Mailbox.

See this?

 

 

Now, this might seem like just a mailbox…and to you, it actually IS just a mailbox…but to me…it’s…something a bit more complicated yet simple.

Two things at once.

I bought this mailbox when I got my first paycheque from Canada Sings back in 2011, just after my ex-husband and I moved into our new home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
We’d gone to a store in Stratford…an expensive garden store that I loved…because I’d seen this mailbox in the window, could never afford it, and NOW I wanted it.
The price tag was just over $150.00.
Which is a lot of money to some…and not a lot to others.
It was a fuck of a lot to me…but, as mentioned, I wanted it.

It was shiny.

It was created to stand the test of time…and stay shiny.

And it sure did.

After the winter, all it needed was a wipe with a damp cloth and it would be shiny again.

I loved that fucking mailbox more than anyone should probably love a mailbox…although it vexed me that the person who put it up, affixed it to the bricks to their height, and not mine.
When there was something at the very bottom of the mailbox, I had to get a chair and stand on it to reach inside.

It was shiny but challenging.

At the time, that mailbox was a symbol to me of better times ahead.
It just was.

The mailbox that was advertised to stand the test of time lasted longer than my life in that house…so, at least I got what I paid for, right?
And when I sold and then FINALLY left that house forever?
I unscrewed it from the bricks and put it in the back of my car.

If you are following along, I’ve cleaned out my real and metaphorical basement (which turned into a cement storage space) five times now.
I’ve whittled down the contents of a three bedroom house and a very long marriage five times.
I’ve traveled…or paid someone to travel…to the dump probably fifty times.
True story.
My old traitor of a KIA couldn’t fit very much in the back…so it took repeated trips to the Stratford dump.

And now? It’s finally time to do the very last purge of the storage space that I’ve had for almost two years.
It contains things that I’ve not touched for the same two years…yet, they are things I found almost impossible to let go of at the time of the fifth purge…things like this friggen mailbox.

UG. THE HANGING ON CAN BE JUST SO UNEXPLAINABLE.

But there is something I read a little while ago…a short little quote/thought/idea that really sunk inside me like a tick…but in the good way, in the final way, in the real-life change way.
It’s this:

Greatest lesson I’ve learned this year is that you can’t have one foot in your old life and one foot in you new life and expect change. You have to fully commit to the new life. (Necole Kane on the TWITTER)

It was a full BLOOP moment when I read that.

After I read that, I harkened back to laying in my bed one morning late last year and asking myself where, oh where I REALLY want to wake up in the morning and the bottom of my soul yelled out:

MOUNTAINS AND/OR OCEAN.
Sharron!! Someplace where it’s warm more than anything else…oh, and sunny.
Yes…sunny!!! Goddess, yes!!
Somewhere the sun shines more than it doesn’t.

Then, last week, I mused over how I’ve been doggedly working towards finding my super-braveness and making a really big change and then I thought:

Well, get the fuck on with it, Matthews.
You are not getting younger.
Not at all.
Life is short.
Do the thing.
It might take a little while…so get on it.
Fucking do it.

And then I decided to use both my feet to walk towards something new, something probably scary, something that will lean on all my shit till I am settled in it…something that would have seemed absolutely undoable just five years ago.

Both Feet, Matthews.

Okay.
It’s time.
I have to clean out that fucking space.
I have to finally empty my fucking basement all together.
It’s filled with assorted things that keep me one foot in.

Old cabaret dresses.
Shoes from tours gone by.
Tools I will never need.
Books and cabaret scripts and scores that are already in my computer.
Things.
Things and things and things I do not need.

It’s been a bit unnerving to realize how very little I really need…and how close these things are to me daily.

I’ve been talking to my friends so much and for so long about clearing out that friggen storage space that one of them…Ari, I think…told me he’s about to write a musical about my fucking storage space because it seems to be a very dramatic, long running and storied place.

But this purge is not just a burn and turn situation, it’s a sell/give/throw away situation…till all that’s left is probably business papers…it’s an empty-that-shit-out situation…it’s the aforementioned I-ALREADY-HAVE-ALL-I-NEED situation.

And the whole thing…this whole journey…this whole closing of a book and giving it away seems to be represented for me with this mailbox that I have not been ready to let go of.

It’s not the mailbox.
I KNOW IT’S NOT THE MAILBOX, PEOPLE.
It’s the idea of the mailbox and the house I loved so much…and a life lived that is well past the best-buy memory date.

It’s very easy to stay so minutely stuck that you almost don’t even feel it.

Me: Sometimes…you know what? AND I am really fucking loathe to admit it, but sometimes it still fucking IRKS me that I got majorly fucked over…for a REALLY long time…by someone I trusted with almost every bit of me.

Therapist: Well, of course you are irked…but the better part of that story is to remember that you got out before you really started to fly, Sharron. OR you could only really fly WHEN you got out. And I clocked the ALMOST. It’s all about perspective.

Me: Well. Huh.

Let the mailbox go, Matthews. LET IT GOOOOOOO.

Embrace a future that is totally unknown in which you are in charge of the adventure.
ANYTHING could fucking happen…and you know what you don’t need to drag behind you?

A shiny mailbox full of outdated bullshit that you have to stand on a chair to reach.

So, this afternoon I put a picture of the mailbox on my INSTAGRAM story…and about an hour later a wonderful gal bought if from me.

I have the money in my bank account already.

She will pick it up tomorrow.

AND I bet she will hang it at just the right height for her AND then it will be filled to the brim with good news, love in the form of words and presents, packages that hold wonderful surprises, and who knows what else…instead of sitting in a metaphorical basement full of expectations and haunted things that no one can see but me.

Like that chick in Poltergeist, I declare this mailbox clean.

God, as I’ve said a number of times, the business of letting go takes a very long time…and it takes the time it’s supposed to take…and the length of time constantly surprises me.
Just when I think I’m done, I realize there is some barnacle that I need to dislodge.
It’s like trying to get all the burrs off your fleece hiking pants after you walk through a bush…those nettles stick, people. EVEN AFTER THE LAUNDRY…AND STICK TO YOUR OTHER STUFF.

Also, I love hiking, obviously.

Two feet.

God, the new mailbox I am going to buy is going to be so badass.

Like, badaaaasssssss.