It isn’t one of my strengths.

Gifted with an uncannily vivid memory, I can still remember as far back as when I was two years old. I know this, because I can remember the apartment my family used to live in, and this was before I went to kindergarten.

Kindergarten for me was not where I learned everything I needed to know. It was, however, where I first experienced a number of things which turned out to be recurring themes in my life.

Case in point: Our school had an excellent playground, not in terms of safety but in terms of fun and adventure potential. Of course, when you’re a pre-schooler, pretty much everything has adventure potential.

The playground had a slide, a swing set, and everyone’s favorite way to get an adrenalin rush (and cuts and bruises in the bargain) – the merry-go-round.

I was not, however, what could be classified as the typical pre-schooler. My most memorable moment at that playground was swinging by myself looking at the trees and wondering about the existence of God.

The paragraphs above are proof of 1) my penchant for digressions and 2) my weakness when it comes to letting go.

I admit that the latter is not very clearly demonstrated by the preceding paragraphs, so I will do my best to elaborate, in the shortest possible sentence.

My mind goes a million directions at once and sifting through my thoughts is too difficult, so I end up mentioning everything instead of just sticking to the topic at hand.

I realize this makes me rather unfit for journalism, but that’s another story – perhaps one I will never tell, lest it become grounds for losing my job.

Letting go is not that simple.

To let go, to relax, to choose what to keep and what to throw (here you may notice this is actually a New Year’s post), this is easier said than done. Anyone who’s tried cleaning out their cabinet or desk or, if you’re ambitious, bodega, knows how taxing a process this is.

Packrats that we are at home, we have accumulated enough white elephants to fill a savannah.

I’m not kidding.

Ondoy, horrible calamity as it was, did us a favor by soaking our ten or so years’ worth of papers beyond recognition, thus solving our incorrigible indecision when it came to the question, to throw or not to throw.

Those papers had been in boxes for ages, waiting to be sorted through.

People who had the misfortune of visiting our house used to comment, “Hey, your house isn’t so messy for someone who just moved in.”

We had been living there for more than two decades.

Even after Ondoy, we still had an unbelievably large pile of maybe-junk to sort through.

You sit for hours, looking through the mountains of reminders of how you once were – your grades – your test papers which were filled with more doodles than answers – your embarrassing declarations of undying devotion to people whose names you can no longer put a face to.

If you’re lucky, you may even find resolutions from New Years past – the ones you make again and again.

If you’re sentimental, like many Pinoys are, you probably keep things like receipts and straws.

I try to tell myself, these things are not the memories, but every time I sit down and face my collection, I feel a pang whenever I put something in the throw pile.
Hardly practical, I know.

So I tell myself firmly…

Toss them out. Not on the street, of course, but you know what I mean. Actually, you may as well sell all your old paper.

Unless you have plenty of time on your hands, then you can recycle your paper yourself, and end up with a year’s worth of green gifts for every birthday, anniversary, and graduation.

The point of this (yes, there is one), is that letting go is a good way to lessen your baggage.

It seems like I’m stating the obvious, but I don’t just mean literal weight.

It’s a sort of purging, a catharsis, even, to be able to let things go. Not necessarily to forget, but to be able to say, “I’ve filed you in the past, so don’t come haunting me.”

Now, if we’re talking about history, that’s different. Don’t let go. In fact, hang on for dear life.

History repeats itself because people forget the mistakes they already made.

But before I venture into serious (political) waters, I will step back onto relatively safe (personal) shores.

The last decade was the worst ever, said Time. I’m not so sure it was the worst, but I think, and a lot of people will probably concur it was pretty bad, judging from this and the fact that status messages bidding 2009 goodbye have been flooding my Facebook wall.

So, my only resolution is to move on into the next decade bringing as little as possible from the last one. After all, it’s always been a good idea to travel light.