What we leave behind

Today I was out in my embarrassing weed-infested back yard (still not landscaped) with my camera, breathing in the autumn air, and letting my eye roam for something to "see". When I found myself stepping over the remnants of play toys, hard caked earth, and...weeds...my thoughts began to formulate into this...

As we journey, we are always leaving traces of ourselves. 

What we leave behind is telling.

(I have always known my husband has been in the kitchen when I find the popped off beer bottle cap lying on the counter, inches away from the trash can. Or I know that my son is home when I find his socks resting in the middle of the floor.)

Sometimes those traces are an insight to our imagination... 

Or an insight into what we find valuable...or not. (Apparently the hand-me-down rusted 5 iron from Great Grandpa is not.)

And then sometimes what we leave behind is a true piece of ourself...

Whether we have left it behind on purpose or not, sometimes those pieces are the most difficult to retrieve...should we even want them back. Yet, if we do, we might find that we have grown too much for that piece to have any real purpose in our life...it being no longer connected to our life in any living way.

Makes me wonder how much emotional energy I have wasted in grieving what I have left behind, what I think I want back. (Even over those things I willingly left.) Oh, if I could be like that bird who has left a piece of herself, knowing that it is pointless to retrieve it and attempt to connect it back into herself. Because what is done is done. I like to think that perhaps she knows that what she has left behind will bring beauty to someone else, a smile. As I pick up the feather and bring it to my daughter who will want it and love it. 

But even more so, as I journey forward, it makes me think seriously about what I am "leaving". Because when all is said and done I want those "traces" to matter.

What are you leaving behind?