Today I bid goodbye to my planners. I have many of those for more than 10 yrs of writing my daily musing and adventures. I must say that they are very dear to me. The pages from these planners became my journals, which contained my hopes, dreams, and even heartaches. The transition from my teenage years to being an adult was inscribed in there too. Those are a lot of days, and yes, equivalent to many pages.
My father decided to bring old papers, newspapers, books, and other items to our friendly junk shop neighbor. We became pretty diligent in making sure that we collect those instead of throwing them away to recycle. However, they became an eyesore and are consuming too much space already.
I was holding on to these planners for a very long time. I thought that I might keep them as long as I am alive. Unfortunately, they were already consuming too much space since I have 1-2 planners per year, 1 for personal and 1 for work stuff. My friends knew that I like jotting down things to organize my thoughts, so they gave me the planners as gifts. So often, I ended up having 1-2 planners per year, sometimes more. Each page reminded me of each day. Some are blank (I’m just too lazy to write), and some were full of memories. Some planners are very colorful with charming illustrations and stickers, some as I grow older, were cleaner and more simple. Looking through the pages made me remember the past years, and though I like planners, I realized that I am not very diligent in writing. I started writing eagerly from January to March and sometimes until June or July but most often, not making it by August to December. I rarely have December entries. It is like a New Year’s Resolution cycle. Still, every year, I repeated the same sequence.
Through minimalism, I realized that I have to part ways with the physical object and take a picture of them to remember them. They contain my memories for so many years, and though parting with it became easy now, it is still a bittersweet moment. It is nice to look back, but my mind is at peace, knowing that I have let go of a significant chapter of my life and move on for a more intentional life.
Simply Jhong 