Bulk Items

Here in the city of Round Rock, once a year they offer a bulk items pick up day… A chance to get rid of large unwanted items.

I’m excited for this because over the year, I find that stuff accumulates. And I’m thankful to live in a community that is aware of that and is willing to respond to the needs of the citizens in by providing a special Bulk Items Pick Up Week.

For example, right now in my backyard is an old broken rocking chair. (I know, we’re THAT family with junk in the backyard, ugh.) It was very useful when our first babies were born—Alicia would sit on it at night and rock with Ruben and Milo. (Sweet)

We had some good memories in that old rocking chair.

Later it went over to my wife’s kindergarten classroom where it was a storyteller’s throne. Then we realized (the hard way) that a wooden rocking chair in a small room filled with little finger and toes wasn’t that smart. (“Ouch!” Sorry kids…)

Then one of the arms broke and it started wobbling. The metal screws stripped out the inside of the pressed wood. Don’t feel too bad—It wasn’t an especially nice or well-built chair to begin with. So it’s been sitting in the backyard for the better part of year now, and slowly it’s fallen apart even more.

Every now and then I thought about busting it up into pieces and putting it in the trash but I never got to it. So, there it sits—what an eyesore. I guess we got used to it and sort of just ignore this big piece of rotting furniture just being there in our backyard.

Relationships can be like that rocking chair. They may be were good once but time goes by, a few unexpected moves, an incident or two, then something really breaks and they can become unwanted junk.

I have many friends who I know struggle with keeping old junk in the backyard. Typically, these things were useful once but something happened. A bad incident. Something snapped. It was fixed and fixed again until it was beyond repair…

Bitterness is often the real bulk item junk that we keep in our backyard.

Anger (or what it’s more commonly known by its street name, “frustration”) is often kept and left to sit unattended in the back private spaces of our hearts. And there, it won’t go away. We’ll get to it. We can get used to walking around it and even to the point where we don’t even really notice that it’s there.

And just like unsightly bulk trash, bitterness is often noticed by new people who come visiting into our lives. We are so used to the bulk trash just being there but other’s are not.

I shudder to think how many sitters and visitors have come over and wondered, “Why do they leave that just sitting out there?”

I think it’s the same unresolved anger. We don’t notice but others will. We think it’s fine but accumulate enough bulk bitterness in your living space and people will stop feeling comfortable coming over… Which adds to the mess, I suppose.

This year, I think it’s time that I get rid of that old, busted chair. I’m going to take it out to the curb and finally get rid of it.

What do you need to bring to the curb? What bulk junk has accumulated in the not-so-private spaces of your life? Are you willing to look at your life from others’ perspective to see how bitterness may be uncomfortable?