I remember the taste of a just right summer peach. There was a peach farm on the way back from the beach. Growing up on Long Island, just about everything is “on the way back from the beach”. We would stop and my mom would buy a basket of peaches.

I’d chose one, bite down and watch the peach juice drip down my hands and land on my sand covered feet. To this day when I eat a warm summer peach, it feels like home.
It’s interesting how a smell or a taste can transport you to another time and place. So many things you remember and so many things you forget.

I thought I’d never forget the first 10 words my daughter said. Figured I didn’t even have to write them down, I’d always remember. But I don’t. And then there are awful things I remember and can’t forget. It seems we don’t always get to choose what stays and what goes. I suppose there are good and bad things about that. The past can be a wrecking ball or a soft kiss on a warm summer day.

The past is there-jumbled up in a blender and the smoothie that comes out is sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet. We can drink it up or pour it down the drain. I like to think of it that way-that I get to decide what to hold on to and what to let go. Today, I’ll remember that peach farm, my mom and a trip to the beach.

Our memories can be a beautiful tribute to who we are now OR they can be a road block to who we wish we could become.  The difference lies in how we choose to manage them.

Are we living in the memories, spending our days longing for what has passed, or even worse, ruminating over how we wish we had done something differently?  Or are we simply observing the memories, either finding joy in them or being happy that they helped to make us who we are today?  

A dear friend of mine gave me the book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  It was a wonderful read with great advice, but what I loved most was the idea of using joy as a form of measure to determine which items to hold on to and which to let go.  I've found this concept to be just as useful in cleaning up my mind as it is in cleaning up my home.  For me this means sifting and sorting through my thoughts and memories to determine which ones bring me joy and which ones I need to let go.

It's wonderful to have the ability to look back with gratitude and appreciation on the experiences that have brought us to where we are now.  And oftentimes it's contrast that helps us to truly appreciate life.  But once those less than joyful memories have served their purpose, it's time to say "thank you for helping me to grow and expand, now I am choosing to let you go".