A Metaphor

Letting go.

Getting rid of excesses, unnecessary keepsakes and excess baggages is like detoxifying the mind and spirit.

I found myself deleting all the messages in my phone's inbox two days ago when my nearly 2-year old Nokia N73 went berserk. Boy, it was such a relief. The sentimental side of me was stopping me but I knew I had to do it.

I had to delete everything for new messages to come in.

And so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and pressed the delete button. When I opened my eyes again, I had a glimpse of the last two of the hundreds of messages stored. They were saved for a long time because they symbolized two turning points in my life: leaving a job I enjoyed and finally being set free by a former lover.

I sighed.

I know these messages were forever gone.

* * *
I took a few sentences from Paulo Coelho's essay, "Closing Cycles." I'm sure it will enlighten one or more of my guests here.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the
books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them...

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

Unknowingly, I have moved on.