I Collect Trash

I collect trash. I literally live in garbage, and I do it to myself. Did you know that about me? I hope not - but the few people who are genuinely close to me do.

I gather the packaging of former versions of myself and cling tightly to them. If I was once presented as one way, I have a tendency to tell myself that I will be labeled like that forever.

I round up everything rotten in my life. People who have hurt me, people who have called me spoiled, ruined, worthless, dangerous and risky. I hang onto those words like oxygen. Because if people I trusted think that, then it must be true, right?

I am an obsessive recycler. I try to reuse friendships that lost their ability to hold any weight long ago. I'm afraid to try anything emotionally new, because I feel so strongly about keeping and fixing what's old and already mine.

A couple of weeks ago, Frank and I both forgot to put the trash cans on the curb in time for the garbage man. Until the following Tuesday, we were shoving the new trash into the can, on top of the old. It was inconvenient, uncomfortable, stinky and distracting.

I don't want to ever again be able to compare my heart to a rotting, overflowing bag of junk.

My packaging and labels are different. And maybe, just maybe, the ones I had on prior really weren't so terrible in the first place.

My focus needs to be on God's opinion, and maybe just a few people I trust 100%. But yeah, mostly God.

Recycling is good. If I allow the Lord to transform me into something positive, healthy and usable.

I love trash day.