Closing Cycles

Last Sunday night when I was cleaning my room and sorting through old stuff, I decided to give away some of it like old books, old collections, clothes and etc. Then I suddenly feel a sudden sense of foreboding so I immediately texted my friend Ruby:

Hi rubs. I was sorting thru my old stuff when I feel this sudden urge to be generous and give away some of it. This is so not me. Do you think I’m dying? Sorry to sound morbid and to be bothering you w/ this but I just feel this need to tell someone about it

Yeah that’s how I really felt. I am one of the most selfish person I’ve ever known. I’m not known even to my own family to give out stuffs esp. old ones. I’m attached to my things. I love holding on to memorabilias, my first grade school ID, my first stationary set is still intact, old pictures, letters, my grade school notebooks and exam papers, medals and ribbons. I love collecting just for the sake of collecting. Stuffs like puzzles, stamps, coins, stickers, books, chocolate wrappers, bookmarks, postcards, newspaper cut-outs of Trivia, youngblood articles, cassette tapes, CDS, VCD, DVD, angel figurines, pooh stuffs and other chuva. That’s why I really feel weird when I began to think of giving out my stuffs. Gawd,I’m questioning even my own motives. So one reason that I can think of is that, I must be dying. I’m not afraid to die but I’ll feel sad if I’ll die hahaha narcissism. Anyways, this train of thought was mercifully cut off when ruby called me up. My ever reliable and sensible friend immediately comforted me and said:

NO Flo, you’re not dying. It might mean that you’re finally growing up and you’re ready to start anew

Her words reminded me of the essay Closing Cycles by Paulo Coelho (see below)

I realized that I kept holding on to the past so much, afraid that it’ll elude me. Afraid that those happy and bittersweet memories will be forgotten so I try to keep a tangible part of it.Afraid to lose the lessons.I forgot that one very important part of the past…part of those memories that I can never lose and will never elude me . . . is ME.

One always has to know when a stage comes to
an end. If we insist on staying longer than the
necessary time, we lose the happiness and the
meaning of the other stages we have to go
through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending
chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters
is to leave in the past the moments of life that have
finished.

Did you lose your job? Had a loving relationship
come to an end? Did you leave your parents’
house? Gone to live abroad? Had a long-lasting
friendship end all of a sudden? You can spend a
long time wondering why this has happened. You
can tell yourself you won’t take another step until
you find out why certain things that were so
important and so solid in your life have turned into
dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be
awfully stressing for everyone involved: your
parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your
children, your sister, everyone will be finishing
chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with
life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a
standstill. None of us can be in the present and
the past at the same time, not even when we try to
understand the things that happen to us. What has
passed will not return: we cannot forever be
children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or
rancor towards our parents,lovers who day and
night relive an affair with someone who has gone
away and has not the least intention of coming
back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to
let them really go away.

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.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so
sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do
not expect anything in return, do not expect your
efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be
discovered, your love to be understood. Stop
turning on your emotional television to watch the
same program over and over again, the one that
shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:
that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting
love relationships that are broken off, work that is
promised but there is no starting date, decisions
that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to
be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will
never come back. Remember that there was a
time when you could live without that thing or that
person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a
need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be
difficult, but it is very important.

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…