We have sold our house, and soon, if all goes well, we will be on our way to new adventures. We have been quite busy in the last few weeks, sorting out what we want to sell, give away, or keep.

As I was packing the brown cardboard boxes, I realized I was not only putting various objects into those boxes, but that I was packing away my life.

The things we collect through the years are a reflection on who we are, what we like, and what we like to do.

Christmas ornaments bring back memories of Christmas past. My daughter made a holiday ball when she was six. Soon she will be thirty years old, and we still put it on the tree each year.

Doodads sit around on the shelves, collecting dust. Many times I have picked them up to dust them and remembered the friend, client, or relative who gave them to me. Each piece reminds me that someone cared enough to shop for it or to hand make it for me, something special they thought I would like.

Some things we have used, and some things I wonder why I ever kept in the first place. There are pieces of cloth left over from making the silly outfits that Uncle Nathan and Aunt Nerva wear in their shows, a half quilted pillow cover I started and never finished, craft supplies, silk flower arrangements, a cake decorating kit, the canning jars my friend Mable gave me, half burned candles from my fiftieth birthday, and an over-the-hill napkin from my fourteenth.

As I sort through all these possessions, I ask myself how I could ever think I am not truly blessed. I must decide which of these memories I want to keep and which I think I can part with, and I remember what an old man I had met once told me: "We come to this earth with nothing but our souls and we leave this earth with nothing but our souls. Everything in between is just borrowed."