The Art of Unlearning
What my mother's death taught me about letting go
When Love Becomes Clutter
There's something achingly beautiful about standing in the spaces our loved ones leave behind.
I found myself in my mother's tiny apartment three days after she passed, surrounded by what looked like forty years of memories refusing to say goodbye. Photographs spilled from shoeboxes like confessions. Greeting cards from decades past lined every drawer. Birthday wishes from 1987 sat next to Christmas cards from last year, as if time had folded in on itself.
My mother was brilliant. One of those minds that could solve complex puzzles and see patterns others missed. But bipolar disorder had been her unwelcome companion since I was small, and in her final years, letting go had become impossible.
Every snapshot held a story too precious to release. Every memento carried the weight of love she couldn't bear to lose.
Standing there, I recognized something uncomfortable in myself.
I had inherited her hoarding gene, not for photographs and greeting cards, but for thoughts and beliefs I'd never actually chosen for myself.
The Weight of Borrowed Wisdom
My mind had become like those overcrowded closets. Stuffed with opinions I'd borrowed from others without questioning. Filled with rules about success that had never been mine to follow. Cluttered with fears dressed up as wisdom, keeping me safe but small.
"You can't trust people."
"Money is the root of all evil."
"Science and spirituality don't mix."
"Good things don't happen to people like us."
These weren't my thoughts, they were hand-me-downs, passed down like old coats that no longer fit but seemed too valuable to discard.
As I sorted through Mom's belongings, releasing photographs one by one, something shifted. Each image I let go taught me about courage. If she could hold onto so much, how much was I carrying that I'd never examined?
The Sacred Work of Subtraction
Here's what surprised me: the most profound changes in my life didn't come from adding more. They came from taking away.
Think about a sculptor standing before a block of marble. Michelangelo didn't create David by adding clay, he revealed him by removing everything that wasn't David. The masterpiece was already there, waiting beneath layers of excess stone.
Maybe we're more like that marble than we realize. Maybe the person we're meant to become isn't someone we need to build from scratch, but someone we need to uncover.
The clearing became my teacher. Each drawer I emptied in Mom's apartment echoed the work I needed to do within myself.
What beliefs could I release?
What inherited fears could I finally set down?
What "shoulds" and "should nots" were taking up space where my authentic knowing wanted to grow?
Finding Room to Breathe
There's something almost holy about empty space.
When I finally cleared those closets, the apartment seemed to exhale. Light moved differently through the rooms. The very air felt lighter, as if the space itself had been holding its breath for years.
I felt the same thing happening inside me as I began questioning the thoughts I'd carried without permission. Beliefs about what was possible started shifting. Stories about worthiness began changing. The separation I'd always felt between faith and reason started dissolving.
For the first time in years, there was room - room for new insights to arise naturally, room for fresh perspectives to take root, room for my own voice to emerge from beneath decades of inherited assumptions.
The Gentle Revolution
This kind of transformation doesn't require dramatic overhauls or perfect plans. It asks for something both simpler and more challenging: the willingness to examine what we're carrying and the courage to set down what we don't need.
Maybe the path forward isn't about becoming someone new. Maybe it's about remembering who you were before the world told you who you should be.
Maybe freedom isn't found in having more, but in needing less.
Maybe the person you're searching for is already there, just waiting for some space to breathe.
In those quiet moments after I'd cleared the last drawer, I understood something Mom had been trying to teach me all along. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is let go.
Not because we don't care, but because we care enough to trust that what belongs to us will remain, and what doesn't will find its way to where it needs to be.
The you who knew is still there, beneath all the noise. She's patient. She's been waiting.
She's ready when you are.
Sometimes the most profound discoveries happen not when we learn something new, but when we remember what we've always known.