There's this mockingbird that sings outside my window back at home. Dad thinks it's obnoxious. (I kind of like it.) Woke up to the sound of it this morning, in my own room. My own bed.
The weeks are starting to blend together, and I've been feeling as though I'm suffocating. But today was good, for a number of reasons.
First, I cleaned out my closet. Six trash bags, three boxes filled to the brim. Twenty-one years worth of build-up, clutter, and unnecessary items, either thrown away or donated. The first sixteen years of stuff was a cinch. The last five, not so much. It's weird, how something as small as a wrinkled map with a few sentences written on it can be so hard to toss. Or a funny picture, from a sunny day so long ago.
Then the next part. Driving with Dad to Goodwill to get rid of all of it. My stomach churned as I looked back at the trash bags strewn across the backseat. Was it a mistake to be so hasty? To throw everything away?
But it was okay. It was okay because at that moment, Dad put on my favorite song and asked about my plans for the future. Which was perfect, because doesn't that beat beating yourself up about the past? We drove to the drop-off center. I lugged the bags in, and that was that.
Unfulfilled hopes and failed dreams aren't reasons to stop hoping and stop dreaming. They're reasons to start back up again.
