Dear Void,
Today I carried more than one rock.
Apparently I’m not very good at this whole “pick one” thing.
The rocks have multiplied.
I’m okay with it.
Moving has a funny way of uncovering everything.
Not just boxes.
Memories.
Tiny forgotten treasures.
Pieces of yourself that somehow survived years tucked away in drawers, coat pockets, and the under couches.
I made quite a mess of my old house.
For a long time, I wouldn’t let anyone help me.
Not because I didn’t need it.
Because needing help felt like proof that I had failed somewhere along the way.
Then something unexpected happened.
For the last two days, I was cleaning with my husband, my ex-husband, and my son.
If you’d shown me that sentence a few years ago, I would have assumed you were describing the beginning of a psychological thriller.
Instead…
it was strangely peaceful.
Everyone simply… helped.
No one made my mess into my identity. Mostly.
No one made me earn the help.
They just picked things up.
Carried boxes.
Swept floors.
Moved forward.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I felt something loosen.
Like I’d finally taken off an itchy sweater vest I’d been insisting I had to wear.
The funny thing about imaginary sweater vests is that no one else knows you’re wearing one.
You just keep wearing it because you’ve convinced yourself you have to.
Then as I was furiously cleaned, something else appeared.
A tiny ceramic dog.
It belonged to my grandma.
She kept little treasures inside a wooden shadow box when I was a kid. Looking was encouraged.
Touching was absolutely not acceptable.
Today, that little dog somehow appeared out of nowhere and dropped straight into my mop water.
Like it had somewhere very important to be. Something important to say.
So naturally…
I put it in my bra.
Obviously.
It spent the rest of the day traveling around with the lucky rocks and a little dog in my bra.
By the end of the day, I realized that wasn’t all I carried.
I was carrying little relics.
Small reminders that life leaves things behind for us to find again.
Some things are heavier than others.
Today I carried rocks.
I carried a little ceramic dog.
I carried old stories.
I accepted help.
And somewhere along the way…
I finally put a few things down.
Maybe that’s all any of us are doing.
Picking things up.
Carrying them for a while.
Learning which ones belong to us…
and which ones we can finally set back down.
Still here.
Still becoming.
A fellow blip.
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