Ah spring… cleaning out my closets.  Getting rid of old things I don’t need any more and packing other things away in case I need them later.  Smiling at things I forgot and am glad to find again.  Sweeping winter cobwebs out of the corners of the ceiling in the spare room I moan that they are hard to see until the light comes in this time of year.  I hate spiders and seem to have a lot of them every spring!

Sounds  a little like the therapy of my past.  I was musing today that therapy, counseling, life teaching, whatever you call it, is a little like spring cleaning.

Take out a memory I don’t need anymore.  Shake it out in the daylight, blow the dust off of it and decide to keep it, throw it out, maybe examine it, put it away and decide what to do with it tomorrow.  It might have to be taken out again later, when it feels safer, when there is help to examine it.  Just like some boxes are too heavy to carry alone, so are some memories. Until then, leave it in the box.  Back in the dark closet.

Cobwebs?  Those would be the memories that elude some survivors.  The ones we dream about and can’t recall, the ones that cause us to wake in a cold sweat… Almost a memory…  they come and go until we have enough light to sweep them away.

It’s a chore.  You may find that the old box comes out more than once before you are really done with it….   That’s OK…  One day it will just be some old box full of stuff that used to matter.  You will have new boxes, full of good things.  Keep those.