Ties

Throwing my arms open wide and bursting into song “To dream, the impossible dream…”  Goodness knows why I did that, but sometimes I just feel like bursting into song, and it can hit me at any moment.
There was something that led to that, but for the life of me I don’t know how I got there.  I was thinking about how often when I want something, I have to be willing to forgo something else to have it.
I saw it in action when we were recently preparing our new shed site.  I have a container of broken up rocks and cement, which I use in pots.  I found more to add.  But the container was already full.  A container cannot be more full or fuller.  It is either full or it isn’t.  I needed to decide what I wanted, and what could go.  I didn’t want a bigger container.  The decision was quite easy really.  Things are not always that easy though.
Sometimes I really want what I already have.  But there is something new that is better and is either embraced or discarded.  To have the new thing I need to get rid of the old.  I can be rather fond of the old.  It may have sentimental value.  It may be a place I have retreated to in the past and found comfort there.
Whatever the case though, the new is more valuable.  It does not have a history with me, but it will.  I intend to make the most of it.  So often I say to myself, I am willing to forgo something else to have this.  The new may be unproven to me but it comes highly recommended.  Others have experienced it, and it gets a lot of five-star reviews.
To embrace the new, I need to get rid of the old though.  I am really not committed to the new if I put the old “just over there.”  Just in case.  I have found that if I am looking for a way to return to the old, I invariably find it.  For me, breaking ties is like cutting a branch off a tree.  When I cut it, there is no going back.  Cutting ties can hurt, but it is the only way I grow.  As James Baldwin said, “The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.”  As a family we once all wore ties as we were going to a Thai restaurant.  But I don’t think that is what he meant when talking of ties.
My life has been full of discarding the old and embracing the new.  More often than not, the only thing I have to go on is my desire for it and having seen it’s positive effects.  To put it another way, I guess cleaning up a house I have not explored and finding something valuable made cleaning up worth it.  Maybe I thought the clutter was comfortable and familiar.  Embracing something new takes me out of my comfort zone.  But it is always worth it when it is valuable.
I think it is as Dylan sang, “you gotta serve somebody.”  It seems it really is true that I determine my route, or someone else determines it for me.  I may have a certain amount of freedom to act in a certain way, but I am always a pawn.  Whose pawn seems to be the question, and am I willing to swap the new for the old.