Culling the Photos

To our first home, a small flat in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, with bars on every window, I brought a lot of baggage. Much of it emotional - hence my nervous breakdown a year later.

I also brought a, fairly unreasonable, dowry of photo albums. 23. (plus 3 boxes of loose photos - not to mention 2 wedding albums)

Craig brought 1. It has a been a minor sticking point every time we have moved since. "Where are we going to put these? Do you really need these?"

Up till this year I have stuck to my guns, "We'll find somewhere, yes I do need them."

But to be honest we have lugged them around for 6 years & I haven't looked at them once. About 3 months ago, during renovations, they were unearthed again, from the back of the cupboard, and I made a ruthless decision. I would cull my photos from before our marriage (29 years of my life!) into 1 album.

Now, I have been lugging these photos around for a long time, I am 36 and I left home (the first time) at 21. They have had at least 9 homes since. What was I thinking?

As I've been culling, I have been blown away by how few I actually need or want! I have moved on, well and truly, from many of the places, events & relationships in each album & half of them are blurry!

If I'm honest. really it just seemed easier to keep them on the shelf than to go through the long and 'presumably difficult' process of culling.

Strangely I have enjoyed the process. I like looking at the photos & I love the thud, of each culled album, as it hits the bin. It has been long. (But everything is in my life at the moment) It has been a little bit difficult, but not very.

To me the whole process has been a good analogy for life. It has made me do some hard inward looking. What am I carrying around for no reason, (or for old reasons) that is weighing me down?

Am I holding on because the change just seems too hard or too painful in the short term? Would I be pleasantly surprised if I actually bothered to make a change? What am I heading for if I don't change? (We had at least 30 albums in the house before I started culling! Luckily there was no housefire, I never would have made it out!)

What would I have room for & what weight would be lifted, for myself and others, if I bothered to cull me?