Your Objects Are Emotional Keepsakes
Why do our belongings feel so charged with energy?
I have a nude painting of me from a long time ago made by my ex. He left the unframed canvas behind, folded up in a closet. I can’t tell you how many times I almost threw it out, but I’m glad I didn’t. Much later, after many moves, I had it properly framed and now it hangs in our bathroom where my husband sometimes ogles it. It no longer holds the anger and disappointment and disgust that once came with that relationship. Now it’s a snapshot of me when I was another woman, and I love that it’s painted, not photographed. I can also appreciate his artistic talent now that I’m painting too.
In grief I learned so well that objects hold energy. It’s a phrase I never really understood before. The painting has taught me that, sometimes, the energy of an object changes over time. When you touch a thing, or just look at it, the magic of your past comes alive again. Memories of the person connected to the object, the moment you first saw or touched it, and all the emotions you had at that time come rushing back to you. To someone else, it may just be a painting on the wall, or a vase on a table, or earrings in a drawer. But to you, these things hold history.
When Bill died, I lived on a tree farm with a big old barn. It was stuffed full of his old belongings. Fishing lures, slabs of wood, an old printer, childhood photo albums all shoved in dusty boxes with no labels or order. He’d moved these things from house to house, as I once did with my painting, postponing the decisions of what to do about the remains of his former life. Then he died and these decisions became mine. I found a couple of bowls I liked that I kept. I used one of them to toss potatoes and carrots and lettuce in. The other holds his ashes. At first, it all felt sacred. But after a while, his things folded into my current existence. These were objects that didn’t carry my memories. They were as old as they were new to me. But still, some of these objects—from his life with a former wife who’d also died—became a part of my daily living, as though the two of them had once lived here in my house.
There’s a table he was making when we met. A big beautiful foyer table that he said belonged in a big beautiful house. He could never bring himself to sell it, even though a couple approached him with an offer of $12,000 once. He said no, even though we needed the money. “What’s the point of making this stuff if you’re not going to sell it?” I asked him. Today, it stands in my foyer and I’m so very glad he knew not to let it go. One day when I’m gone, it will probably live in a stranger’s home with no connection to its creation, but I know they will at least appreciate it for its beauty.
We all live with things that mean something to us, amidst a lot of stuff that doesn’t. We don’t know today what simple part of our homes might pass on to someone who will feel it charged with energy when we’re gone. Just an ordinary dish, or piece of jewelry, or framed photograph, or a watch we wear every day, might mean something we can’t envision right now.
When my mother died, I felt guilty because I didn’t want her things. I didn’t feel the energy in them. And when my father died, I wanted everything because it all felt too important to let go. So maybe we project our feelings onto these objects and they reflect our memories back to us. It could be as simple as that. You walk by an object, thinking of your to-do list and, bam, you’re a little girl on a bicycle again. Or you’re suddenly a grieving adult who still has a pocket of missing feelings inside that you thought were gone. Or you see something that reminds you that you weren’t always a middle-aged person with an aching body yearning for a younger self like she was another human being entirely. And, yes, I’m still calling myself middle-aged.
Maybe this is why I can’t make a home today simply around design. Even if I can see that a color is off, or a style doesn’t quite work, certain objects—even new ones, surprisingly—create a feeling in me that I want to have again. In a perfect world, I manage to find the right design combined with the necessary function that also somehow brings me joy. But if I can only choose one, it tends to be the feeling I get when I look at it.
My mother-in-law takes her son on a tour of her apartment every time he goes to visit. She pulls a figurine out of a cabinet and explains where she got it, how valuable it might be, and how he must never get rid of it. Many of her objects surprise me because they don’t seem to have a direct connection to her history. They’re usually a stranger’s history because she shops at estate sales, looking for bargains. The less she paid, the better. For her, the good feeling an object brings seems more related to its monetary value. But she’s concerned about what will become of her objects after she dies, as though she were leaving pets or children behind and I wonder if I’ll ever feel that way.
Mostly I know that whatever feelings are generated by my things are really in me, not in the object itself. And when I die, wherever I go, the feelings are mine to either bring along or dissipate with me. When my time here is finished, I hope to fly freely off into whatever death brings, without the weight of yearning for all that’s left behind. It’s a little easier to do that when I have hope that there is a next realm I can’t yet imagine, and that it carries treasures all its own. But in order to be open to whatever is next—even if it’s simply peace—I need to let go of my attachment to this beautiful life we share here. Let the objects be for those still here, bouncing their history off the beauty around them.
Do you have an object that ignites your emotions?
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My grandpa passed away last year, and though we really weren't close, we had memories together. When my family started going through his belongings after, I found all these matches that he collected from different places. Immediately, I knew that I wanted them and though I don't know exactly what I want to do with them, it's that energy you were talking about. Just needed to keep them. Lovely post, thank you.
So true. I keep trying to give Emma some fine jewelry that I've had for many years. She doesn't want it, it's not her style. She's too young to understand that I want her to have it, so when she looks at it, after I'm gone, she'll think of YiaYia. Has nothing to do with purpose.