I’ve been purging things. I have this overwhelming desire to get everything organized and get rid of what I can. So I tackled one of the few places left with my mother’s things. The drawer held her old address book. I picked it up and flipped through the pages. I never used it after she died. I never tried to contact people to let them know she had passed. She had done all that herself before she died, so there was no need. Still, I kept it just in case something came up and I needed to locate someone. Now it was here in my hand, and tears were welling up in my eyes. I tried to put my finger on what that was about. I knew there was a misbelief underneath it, and I wanted to catch it and remove it.

The feeling of lost connections surfaced. The great disappointment of losing everything in the end. This address book was my mother’s connection to the world. She valued family and friends more than anything. She spent hours in her recliner with her rosary, saying prayers for everyone. If someone was sick, she prayed for them. I took the pages out of the binder and contemplated recycling them. They felt heavy in my hand. Throwing them out like scrap paper felt like a sacrilegious act. I put them in my bag of sacred paper to be burned later.

The encounter with my mother’s things brought up that nagging feeling of how I couldn’t help her in the end. That thought provoked another surge of tears. I examined what words or thoughts were triggering the emotions. I was going to get to the bottom of this. I thought about her disappointment over our relationship and how hard it was for her to lose friends. Then I turned it around. Was this just a reflection of my own feelings of disappointment over life? I couldn’t help her with her health in the end, and what I suggested seemed to make things worse. But then, she couldn’t help me as a child—leaving me vulnerable to terrible abuse. So mutual disappointment. I really didn’t want to leave that unresolved, to play out in a future life if I didn’t get to heaven this time.

In the middle of this, a woman stopped by to pick up a free futon frame I had listed. She took it away, and I followed my ripe emotions. I felt bad that I had kept that futon frame for three years after I realized I wasn’t going to use it. I had kept the futon frame captive and separate from someone who could love it.

Okay—that was my desire showing up: to have everything harmonious, each person or thing with its perfect match. I could see several connected misbeliefs.

I think I know what is best for people and things.
I have to do what is best.
It is best if everything is matched and harmonious.

I also recognized that I am unable to make everything harmonious.

And

I am not enough.

Now that felt liberating.

I am not enough.
I am not enough to stop people’s disappointment.
I am not enough to help my mother.

And the underlying misbelief:
I should be enough to…
I should be enough to stop my mother’s pain, my friend’s depression, people’s disappointment.

I’m not sure I got to the bottom of all of this. But the tears and the emotions are gone now. What is left is a sense of peace. What would it take to let go of all my delusions of being responsible for creating harmony and peace all around me?