Observation, Perspiration or Inspiration:
Well I gotta tell you. Yesterday I was such a basket case that today my home looks like a Good Housekeeping cover shot. That’s just how I roll. So I want to tell you exactly how this went down. This is partly confession and partly self-talk. And I’m sharing because maybe, like me, you have time now to order your past and make room for the future.
It started a week ago when I discovered that GarageBand on my iPad was glitching, preventing me from recording a new song I’m working on. I’d have to dump and reinstall the program. But first I’d need to back up my song files to my laptop. Unfortunately, my laptop storage space was maxing out, recently giving me the dreaded warning message that files couldn’t be saved.
Delay was no longer possible. In order to create new things, I was going to have to truly roll up my digital sleeves and Kondo-Mari about 80 gigs from decades of my life.
I’d have to painstakingly preserve irreplaceable system files and treasured documents while decisively trashing other files that were duplicates, obsolete or just irrelevant now to my life. I only have so much disk space.
Pre-Covid, it might have taken a month to do this, but in This New American Life, I managed to crawl my way through it in about 6 days including some all nightery. Again, it’s how I roll. Anal retentive.
Thankfully, I had a new 2TB external drive sitting on my shelf for a year waiting for this moment. Because, hey, I’ve known it was coming for a long time. So, I opened the box and purposed to set it up with simplicity and clear reason – and to keep it straightforward this time.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but I created multiple Google Backup and Sync files, made a bootable system disk, cleaned out my cache files using a programming file called Applejack. I went deep, folks.
Now, the last 3 days things got really heavy. I had to face the family movie files. They were a half-mess. The worst kind. Where you started cleaning them up 6 years ago but didn’t finish and now you’ve forgotten what was done and what wasn’t. And why won’t a quarter of the files of your one and three year old babies play now?! And can you Google a repair fix? But wait, here’s another folder where all those files work plus there are additional movies in formats you don’t understand.
Are you crying yet? I ate a lot of leftover Easter chocolate late that night.
But here’s the unexpected punch.
When you (meaning me) sort through memories, the save and delete buttons are sticky. They don’t “click”. They take a chunk out of you, or fill you up in a heart-breaking way.
The little head that leaves his train table and bumbles right into the camera saying “Mama, I wuv you.” The church friends who came over to help when Jordan traveled overseas; the same ones who launched Bluewater with you, who you taught to pray. You hear the words of people who left you, some with tears and some with a knife edge. You see Grandma Norma coming home with you from California; the same summer you visited your old house in Gloucester along the salt marsh. The last birthday dinner at Kaimana Beach with your emaciated dad, struggling to breathe, a year before he died.
And you. Your voice was higher, fresher. You hear yourself trying so hard to be a great mom, to make your family happy while inwardly numbed with boredom and weariness.
ALL. THAT. LIFE. Rushes on you like it was yesterday.
But most of these files are 10-20 years old.
So you click the computer folders: move this, delete that.
And your heart is trying hard to follow the folder hierarchy, do the math – but it’s not its forte.
So the next morning you wake up crying – why?
Because life seems to have cost so darn much.
Because it’s obvious how long you were utterly overextended.
Because you didn’t or couldn’t stop the many failures.
Because your children are taller than you now and aren’t SO interested in your stories or hugs.
And when you look at your final historical compilation: 100 gigabytes stored in a 3” box, plus 5 Youtube links, the doubt nags at you.
Does anyone care? Do you matter in the universe?
And do you have enough in you to live another 100 gigabytes?
You seriously doubt it. But, lucky you, longevity is in your genes.
You need to stay dark for a while. Everyone stays out of your way while you clean the house. Mumbling desperate, incoherent prayers as you go.
You do the laundry, water the plants and straighten the rug.
You change the patio furniture, take a shower and put on makeup.
You have a shot of Jack Daniels.
And the Holy Spirit is drinking with you.
“As often as you take this cup, remember Me”, Jesus said.
In the Bible, when James and John’s Tiger Mom asked Jesus to let her boys sit as His right and left, He said, “Can they drink the cup I’m going to drink?” They answered confidently, “We can!” And Jesus, says, “You’ll drink it indeed but you don’t know what it means boys.”
I too was so confident once. Bottoms up, Lord! But in my 5th decade, I’m not so quick to answer. This cup of life has been a lot. And frankly, it’s left me teetering. Forced to pause, to fully render each graphic frame, I now hear myself cry:, “Too much, Lord! I’m out of my depth. And I’m ashamed that I can’t hold it all. Can’t touch bottom here. I am so small."
And then I realize, perhaps I’ve finally come to the right place. Humility.
He says, “Good. Now let it go. And follow Me.”
“Empty Trash”.
There’s that satisfying sound in my spirit as the burdens drop off the drive, file by file. I start to feel the space around me return. And memory becomes usable again.
And now? Well, I think I'm getting space to record that new song.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus.
You have drunk the cup of life and of death.
Be with us as we drink and it churns within us.
You have given many of us the most valuable resource of Time right now.
So make us brave to take the days in and let the days go.
The ones this week, and the ones from decades ago.
Make us brave to walk with you through the deep files of our hearts.
Make us patient to taste our humiliations, and also our hopes.
Because you see fruitful days ahead. You hear the songs in queue to be written.
Lord, save us from ourselves, from unwillingness to change.
We permit You to do the gut-wrenching but gracious work in us today that will make the best tomorrows possible.
Amen.
An Idea:
This week, ask God to show you if there's an issue that's taking an inordinate amount of "memory" in your soul. Talk with Him about it in detail and invite him to show you what parts of it to keep and which parts you can trash from your memory. Ask Him to show you something new that is waiting for you.
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