Cleaning out childhood

It occurred to me yesterday that I know longer have young children. I was starring into the closet in our bonus room (aka play room, tv room, workout room, sewing room) - gazing at the piles of play clothes and blocks, children's books; barbies, stuffed animals and legos and realized that this collection of 'stuff' really doesn't have a purpose in my house any longer.

My youngest daughter and I spent the afternoon pulling everything out of that closet. We picked through the doll clothes and the barbies who had interesting hair cuts. We discovered a cache of beanie babies that rivals what you can find on a store shelf. Slowly we separated out what would be kept for posterity and what would go to charity and what simply had to be thrown away. My library of children's books will go to my sister - and then on to the real library. Blocks and my daughter's special babydoll will go up in the attic.

It was an odd shift in my own thinking - to really feel how age has creeped up on us all. Change happens whether we like it or not. I wasn't sad as I did this, I actually felt lighter. My daughter and I laughed over some of the things we found as memories came up and softly fell away. When it is time to move and shift in our lives, sometimes it isn't chaos and conflict that are the hallmark of change. Sometimes it is ten shopping bags full of stuffed animals that make room for what we want in our lives right now.

The closet? Its now full of my sewing stuff.