**I left a boyfriend**, who curled up on my front doormat to be kicked on the way out, but I left by the backdoor. I had been ready to leave for a long time, but he did not know it that I no longer loved him in that way, or chose not to see it coming, the way jilted men will do. I missed him for a while, and dream about him occasionally, but he was a lesson in who not to love, and left a chamber of my heart open for the next, and the next, until I settled on the one I would not leave. 

**I scrapped piles of metal**- bed frames and patio chairs, twisted fence wire and star pickets, rusting car doors, tyre rims, piled into a trailer to take to 'weigh in', sometimes for the grand total of $80, which would pay the electricity bill. 

**I left a job that was killing me.** My only regret is that I did not do it sooner. 

**I burnt dead branches that had fallen in storms.** A winter bonfire is beautiful, sparks flying everywhere. I burnt my school reports and my diaries. I did not need that old self, the insecure one, the sad and lonely one. I did not want one to read my sadness when I was gone. There will be other things to read. 


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23vsDwUVyVadvUfU6nAx8ZFh8HsTxUi5DQpYGuaeEnGhUPZY5k8WiszaY1bf37ZPfs7Bk.png)


**I abandoned gardens**, where I had worked gloves to frayed fingers, tugging nettles and brambles, extracting rocks and tin cans and plastic toys and dog food wrappers and old bottles to re-create something new. Planting there gave me hope. One day, I would think, when I leave this place, someone else would love the garden, or perhaps it would be covered again in tangled briar. 

**I relinquished a horse to my cousin.** She was a pinto skewbald pony and I rode her bareback down deserted beaches. She was well loved in her new home until she died. Her name was Bayleaf and sometimes I gallop her beside the sea in my dreams.

**I vacated thirty two rental houses** with not much but a backpack and some boxes of books and a pot of thyme. I learnt charity shops would provide what I would need again  after leaving curbside: painted pine dressers, tables levelled with coasters. Other things were makeshift and turned into other things: bricks and planks and milk crates are bookshelves, and blankets cover knees, dirty couches and beds in winter alike. 

**Once I dumped a mattress**. I will always feel guilty - flytipping is evil, though I have compassion for those who can't afford $80 dollar tip fees, or removalists to shift you and your possessions. These days they have recycling programs for mattresses. I forgive myself. 

**This week I have gifted or sold** my mushroom growing equipment, forty Fowlers jars, two milk crates of beer bottles, two bee suits, a smoker, and the Dummies Guide to beekeeping book. When asked why, I said I have done those things now, and do not care to do them again soon, and when I lose my garden, I won't have jars to fill. Besides, if I have things to put in jars, I can find new jars.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23tvnkAeFyBAsUpnjykRido3CXfRje3SDwfmw9n4xzN7sgkeAbFx1cUViWeEo6fGV1VPd.png)


**I renounced a shaky, shaky belief in God.** I replaced him with nature, who was a better teacher. 

**I shed a bookshelf of books I will never read again**. I held onto the one about unicorns, because my father's writing is inside the front cover, and I still belief in unicorns. Happy Christmas 1984, it says. Love Mum and Dad. 

**I said goodbye to my father in the ocean.** He still doesn't leave. I shed tears and they keep coming and there is not much I can do about that, because when you truly, truly love someone it is for forever and ever, and it is not a thing you can put on the kerb and forget. 

**I cast off** my youth for crow's feet, my bleeding time, my ability to handle more than two glass of wine. I relinquished my hard core yoga practice for gentler yin, being kinder to my body as they told me to do. It was hard for a time and then I settled into this new life where sometimes it hurts to get out of bed in the morning - both hips and heart.


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/242rwAngPGZZUucXqz5i1mTAhnPtmcbgTN2iVtLunA2QNo2xNu1mANtqroMD1VN569rd8.png)



But the worst, the worst, the worst, was when **I abandoned a dog.** Her name was Port. She was so loyal and no one would take her when I went a-travellin'. I tried. My Nana took me and the dog to the pound. 'You must be responsible', she said, in her thick Bavarian accent. She meant it kindly. I will never forget her face looking back at me. I would never get another dog. They break your hearts and if there is the slightest off-chance you will break theirs, do not bring them home. 

**Life is a process of gaining and losing, ad infinitum.** Things fill voids. Beliefs grow firmer or shakier, lovers are everything then nothing, youth is there and then it is whisper in your left ear that you were once and now you are close to no more. 

It is okay. 

It is what it is. 

<hr>
<hr>

### [The Drifters: Bruce Dawe](https://bpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/dist/5/118/files/2012/09/Drifters-by-Bruce-Dawe1.pdf)

*One day soon he’ll tell her it’s time to start packing  
and the kids will yell ‘Truly?’ and get wildly excited for no reason  
and the brown kelpie pup will start dashing about, tripping everyone up  
and she’ll go out to the vegetable patch and pick all the green tomatoes from the vines  
and notice how the oldest girl is close to tears because she was happy here,  
and how the youngest girl is beaming because she wasn’t.  
And the first thing she’ll put on the trailer will be the bottling‑set she never unpacked from Grovedale,  
and when the loaded ute bumps down the drive past the blackberry canes with their last shrivelled fruit,  
she won’t even ask why they’re leaving this time, or where they’re headed for  
—she’ll only remember how, when they came here  
she held out her hands, bright with berries,  
the first of the season, and said:  
‘Make a wish, Tom, make a wish.’*

**This is in response to The Minimalist's questions this week. I choose Option 2, about the things we left behind, whether it was difficult or ard, and the impact they have had on my life.**


<center>

# `With Love,` 


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/23t6xT1abr5kFMeEirKwZ2QqT6MK9U4SBpKCQZAjVEojgm7uSSGL9AJSuwtBsUmMAV5jv.png)







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