Old Wine

 As someone who thinks visually, I should have known I would lie awake imagining each room in our house as we prepared to move. Beginning with the rooms at the top, and working my way down, room by room, in my mind, I tried to figure out how to pack things. Because we were downsizing, I also thought about what needed to be given away. For some reason, I never reached the basement, until yesterday. We needed to be out by midnight, so there was no more delaying or denying the work that needed to be done down there.

Stored in the basement was my wine, bought years ago when I could still drink. Too cheap to let it go, the fact that some of it was now vintage made it more precious, still. But there was more than just wine stored in those boxes, there were memories of joyful parties and dinners when the best wine was served last. Advised by others that a person in recovery keeping wine in the house was akin to having poisonous snakes in the house, I did it anyway and have fortunately not been bitten in twelve years.

Still, lifting the boxes and carrying them to the truck, hearing the bottles rattle, stirred and awakened something deep within me. In my mouth, I could taste the flavor. I could smell the aroma as if my nose was dangling over the edge of a glass. Because I’m an addict, I imagined sitting beside the truck and opening every bottle, but I didn’t.

Instead, I thought about how much my life has changed since I bought this wine. I realized the wine no longer played the role in my life it once did, that it was old wine in more ways than one. Such thoughts made me wonder about all the other wine I still carry, like habits that no longer work, opinions or views that are no longer my own, relationships that take more life than they give, and work that grinds as never before. Holding on to such bottles, hearing them rattle, can cause us to hold tight, but old wine can't be put into new wineskins, so maybe it's time to let the old wine go.

For me, life is becoming more about letting go, than taking hold, but it's hard. I still cling to too much old wine. Like the bottles I carried to the truck, (that will soon be scattered at the doorsteps of friends) I wonder what else I need to release?