For me, letting go is probably one of the hardest things a person can do, but should do. Screw me over and I’ll never ever forget what you did. I’ll eventually forgive you, but you can’t expect that things will ever be the same again. I can forgive, but I never forget. It’s just the way I am, and I’ve long accepted that.

But when it comes to material things and other sentimental stuff, it’s a different story. If I can get rid of clutter, I’d get rid of it—not unless the story behind it made such an impact in my life that getting rid of the thing would be an insult to my memory. I’m the exact opposite of my mom when it comes to things… She likes to keep things even if they’re just taking up space and have no use just because they had some sentimental value.

My dad is like me. So are my sister and Marc. And that, makes moving to a new house twice as hard.

The new house we’ll be moving into is half the size of our old one. It would be utterly ridiculous to bring everything we have now there with us—not unless we wanted to sleep on the roof or by the sidewalk.

Everyone, except my mom, has already decided on which things to let go.

It broke my dad’s heart, but he knew he’d have to give his two beautiful Yellow Labrador Retrievers away. They just don’t have a place in our new home—and I do mean that literally. There wouldn’t be any place for them to even walk around. With all the other medium-sized dogs we’ll be taking with us (that’s about 6 medium-sized dogs plus a tiny one), we can only take one huge dog and not all three. After about two months of coaxing, he finally agreed to give the dogs to my sister’s best friend.

My sister, on the other hand, didn’t really have a problem letting go of her things as long as she got to keep her two dogs and a duffle bag of a Sony PSP, game cartridges, and a sketch pad. I think, that if only we had so much money, she’d have preferred it if we bought not only a new house, but new things as well. I guess my sister is just really so tired of all the clutter we have in this house.

Like my sister, Marc doesn’t have letting go of stuff either. Besides, we don’t really have much stuff here as a married couple except for home and office appliances. It would only take less than a day for us to transfer everything to the new house—which is actually the reason why we intend to move our stuff last.

It saddens me a bit, but I’ve long decided to let go of my mini library. I’m only keeping books that I often read—like my Narnia, Harry Potter, and computer books. Other than that, all the other books I’ve collected since childhood will just go to charity.

The worst “thing” I probably have to let go of is leaving Sheero’s remains behind. We buried her in the garden, close to us, and it really breaks my heart that we can’t bring her. The idea of exhuming her remains is just so taboo for me—I honestly feel her remains deserve more dignity than that. Besides, I think Sheero would have preferred to have her body remained buried there too. She can still watch over us from Rainbow Bridge anywhere we go, and her remains would be in a place where she grew up and learned to love and be loved. A part of me doesn’t want to let go, but a part of me wants to and knows that I have to.

So yes. Sheero’s remains wouldn’t be exhumed. But I am going to build a memorial for her in a little nook of our new garden, and a website that’s long overdue.

My mom… Well, she’s a different case. As I said, letting go for her of things is just way too difficult. Even before she had a stroke, she’d been like this already. But don’t get me wrong. I do know where she’s coming from, though sometimes me and my sister fondly call it “the Hamster mentality” when trying to convince her to let go of a certain thing.

You see, my mom is as practical as she is sentimental. Kind of like a hamster, you know, or even an ant. I can’t find any better word to describe her except for the Filipino word, masinop. She likes hoarding things for a rainy day. Nothing’s wrong with that, right? The only problem now is that those “rainy days” might never come again for most, if not all, of the things she kept. The “food” in our “ant hill” is already spoiled and way too much for our “colony” to handle.

My Dad, sister and I take turns convincing my mom let go of certain things… Like her roomful of textiles. My mom used to love sewing a lot before her stroke—she even made me a classy black gown for a formal event in college aside from custom pillow cases, bed sheets, comforters, curtains, table cloth, sundresses, shorts, and anything that can be sewn. That’s probably where I got this liking for sewing custom dog clothes.

Thing is, you have to understand why she’s like that. Ever since her stroke, she hadn’t been able to sew anything anymore. Giving away all of her textiles is kind of like me giving away my computer stuff. It’s part of her, you know? But the problem is, our new home wouldn’t be able to accommodate that many textiles anymore. We’ve been trying to convince her to let go of most of it—and just keep the best ones—or we’ll all be sleeping over piles of cloth in our new home. She’s been adamant about it a month ago, but since we’ve started moving our stuff little by little, she’s slowly beginning to understand that she really needs to let go and make the most out of what’s happened to her.

I had no idea moving is as stressful as this. We’ve moved twice before, but it was within the same street and still an old property of our family. But this time, it’s going to be a total change—probably the exact opposite of our environment now.

Whew! The sooner this move is done, the better. Hopefully I’d be so busy with the Philippine Blog Awards that the stress of moving would be overshadowed by the stress of planning such a huge event 😛

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Just a little plug…

Marc, Shantee, Peter and I are on Rated K this coming Sunday at 6:30PM on ABS-CBN! It’s an interesting piece about pets in celebration of Valentine’s Day, and I’m so happy my dogs and hamsters have a few minutes of fame. I’d like to say more, but it’s better that you watch it yourself! It’ll be fun, promise 🙂

I’ll be posting a behind-the-scenes entry about the event once the segment airs, so do keep coming back for updates! I know I’ve been a very delinquent blogger for the past few months since Sheero’s passing, I’m slowly getting back on track again 🙂