Treasures of the past

There are times when I can be very sensible and there are moments when I am just the opposite: unreasonable and stubborn.



One of those stubborn moments is when it comes to the time when mom wants to throw my diaries, letters, books, bits and pieces of stuffs from my early years. Coming back home after 4 years of studying overseas, I was horrified to find that the house where I grew up has been sold. Eyes big as saucers..while the heart becoming smaller and smaller as I walked through the half empty house. Shock and sadness filling up.



'Where are Dad's collection of pipes?' I asked.
'Ohh..I gave them to Pak Su, since elder brother and me do not smoke pipes' said 2nd brother.
'You did what?' I was stupefied.
'And I also gave away some of your stuffs as the new apartment is so much smaller and it doesn't have as much space to put everyone's stuffs in it. And those stuffs of yours are junks' he continues, putting salt into an open wound. Junks? Those were cat's personal stuffs!


After Dad passed away and everyone (except me) agreed to move to KL , they got rid of my books, my paintings, bus and cinema tickets.. and those bottles of colored origami stars that I  spent hours and hours of supposedly study time to fold. My collection of cassettes and Dad's clothes! Missing also.. Would I take them with me to wherever I am going? Perhaps not.. it's just that I wanted everything to be same like before I left home. Like the time when Dad was still there...


But now, after all those years, I finally understood. It's not about the items that were given away. The hardest thing actually was that those items were a part of that person who I used to be..a part of a previous life that I wanted to keep intact. And for those memories, I have not been talking to my brothers for years.
(It doesn't feel silly at all at that time, though).



Sometimes...you have to let go of unused things...even if only to make room for the future. Where would we be if we never let go of the past, never want to listen to new songs, never throw away the old clothes, the tickets..? When you hold on too hard to the past, and for no better reason that it was a part of you, it will take up so much space that you don't have room to try something new.



Hmm.. where did I put the phone book with brothers' numbers on it? Well..there are still some space in the old album to add new photos of probable nieces and nephews. ...Will the phone numbers still ring?